Pablo Medina: Literature and Democracy (July 1996)

Twentieth century literary culture in the United States, Pablo Medina observes, has “exhibited a certain tendency toward classification and labeling.”  Do social and ethnic labels “help place writers within the continuum of North American literature”? Or do they contain and marginalize writers?  Considering the ways labels are used and misused, Medina proposes a different, more democratic orientation toward the range of literature that makes up our contemporary landscape.