Royal News
About Royal News
- Royal News is published for The University of Scranton community.
- Submit announcements to royalnews@scranton.edu by Friday at 5 p.m. for inclusion on Tuesday.
- For additional information about Royal News, contact:
The Office of Public Relations
(570) 941-7669
send an email
Conference Showcases Multi-ethnic Literature
An Asian American writer born in Hong-Kong, Chin focuses her works on social issues, particularly issues pertinent to her bi-cultural identity and Asian American feminism. She has won multiple awards for her poetry including accolades from the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as a Fulbright Fellowship. Chin’s works include three books of poetry, edited anthologies and fiction. She is a professor of poetry at San Diego State University.
“I want to thank you all; the teachers, the professors for writing about us, for teaching our work and keeping us alive and breathing,” said Chin. Chin read a variety of works including “How I Got That Name, an Essay on Assimilation,” a poem about the origin of her name and the perceptions that come from her ethnicity and gender. She spoke about her love of Haikus and read a series of them called “Bad Girl Haikus.”
Sanchez, who is originally from Birmingham, Ala., was an activist during the Black Arts & Civil Rights Movement. Her works include six plays, 18 books of poetry and three children’s books. Her numerous awards include the National Endowment for the Arts and a Pew Fellowship. She has lectured at more than 500 universities and has read her poetry in nearly a dozen countries on several continents.
Sanchez began her speech by reading the names of significant minority leaders. She spoke about her experiences as a teacher and read a variety of her works based on personal experiences. One poem, called “Just Don’t Ever Give up on Love,” was about a woman she met at a park who had married five men in her lifetime. Another poem she read was about her 16-year-old pupil who married a 30-year-old man.
Susan Mendez, Ph.D., assistant professor of English and theater at The University of Scranton and co-chair of MELUS 2010 saw this conference as a way of “talking about real practices of oppression and surviving it and hopefully teaching our students to be active and engaged in these materials.”
Founded in 1973, MELUS is formally known as The Society for the Study of Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States. The organization’s mission is to expand the definition of American literature through the study and teaching of Latino American, Native American, African American, Asian and Pacific American, and ethnically specific Euro-American literary works, their authors and their cultural contexts. MELUS has held a national conference annually every April at various sites across the country.
Joseph Kraus, Ph.D., associate professor of English and theater at The University of Scranton, also served as co-chair for the conference.
