Migrating Fictions
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
MIGRATING FICTIONS Migrating Fictions Gender, Race, and Citizenship in U.S. Internal Displacements ABIGAIL G. H. MANZELLA THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS | COLUMBUS Copyright © 2018 by Abigail G. H. Manzella. All rights reserved. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Manzella, Abigail G. H., author. Title: Migrating fictions : gender, race, and citizenship in U.S. internal displacements / Abigail G. H. Manzella. Description: Columbus : The Ohio State University Press, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017036404 | ISBN 9780814213582 (cloth ; alk. paper) | ISBN 0814213588 (cloth ; alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: American fiction—20th century—History and criticism. | Migration, Internal, in literature. | Race relations in literature. | Displacement (Psychology) in literature. | Refugees in literature. Classification: LCC PS379 .M295 2018 | DDC 813/.509355—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017036404 Cover design by Andrew Brozyna Text design by Juliet Williams Type set in Adobe Minion Pro Front cover images: (1) Jack Delano, “Group of Florida migrants on their way to Cranberry, New Jersey, to pick potatoes,” Near Shawboro, North Carolina. Library of Congress, July 1940. (2) Clem Albers, “Persons of Japanese ancestry arrive at the Santa Anita Assembly center from Santa Anita Assembly center from San Pedro, California. Evacuees lived at this center at the Santa Anita race track before being moved inland to relocation centers,” Arcadia, California. National Archives, April 5, 1942. Back cover image: Dorothea Lange, “Cheap auto camp housing for citrus workers,” Tulare County, California. National Archives, February 1940. Published by The Ohio State University Press The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. ANSI Z39.48-1992. 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To my parents, Kathy and Joe, for teaching me what is possible And to Lee for being my safe place when I seek those possibilities CONTENTS Acknowledgments ix INTRODUCTION The “Unprecedented” Internal U.S. Migrations of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries 1 CHAPTER 1 The Economic and Environmental Displacements during the Great Migration: Precarious Citizenship and Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God 28 CHAPTER 2 The Environmental Displacement of the Dust Bowl: From the Yeoman Myth to Collective Respect and Babb’s Whose Names Are Unknown 67 CHAPTER 3 The Wartime Displacement of Japanese American Incarceration: Disorientation and Otsuka’s When the Emperor Was Divine 109 CHAPTER 4 The Economic Displacement of Mexican American Migrant Labor: Disembodied Criminality to Embodied Spirituality and Viramontes’s Under the Feet of Jesus 154 AFTERWORD The Mobility Poor of Hurricane Katrina: Salvaging the Family and Ward’s Salvage the Bones 188 Bibliography 199 Index 214 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS DON’T LET anyone fool you, it’s a slog to write a book, and while much of this writing took place sitting on a sofa with my laptop and giant stacks of books, the contemplation for it often took place surrounded by others in conversa- tions, teaching, and listening. It was a journey that taught me a great deal but also reminded me of the benefits of home via places and people. Thank you to Elizabeth Ammons for guiding me at the start of this proj- ect and for her close, critical, and intelligent eye and to Christina Sharpe for steering me along the way and for her continuing words of encouragement throughout the process; such kindnesses mean a lot. I’d like to thank others at Tufts University for creating a positive atmosphere for me to grow and work, including Modhumita Roy, Joe Litvak, Sonia Hofkosh, and Ronna Johnson, as well as Chantal Hardy, Noah Barrientos, Sue Penney, and Wendy Medeiros during my days working in the front office. Stern College for Women gave me my first full-time teaching position, and I particularly want to thank Linda Shires, Ann Peters, Nora Nachumi, Richard Nochimson, and Manny Wei- dhorn. At Centre College I found a place that felt like a home even though it was a temporary one. Specific thank yous go to Philip White, Lisa Williams, Mark Rasmussen, Jami Powell, Heather Morton, and Eva Cadavid. When I was at the University of Missouri I found great colleagues, including Joanna Hearne with her kindness and helpful comments, Sam Cohen, Sheri-Marie Harrison, Andy Hoberek, Nancy West, Julija Šukys, Elizabeth Chang, Elisa Glick, Joan Hermsen, and Alex Socarides, among many more. ix x • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS To my students, I appreciate their taking their educational journey with me. Librarian and office administrators have helped me throughout my career, including Shulamith Cohen, Hallie Cantor, Elinor Grumet, Paula Fleming, Mary Moore, Sharon Black, Vickie Thorp, Paula Donoho, and Anne Barker. Thank you also to my editor, Lindsay Martin, to managing editor, Tara Cyphers, who kindly shepherded me through the end of the project, and to the anony- mous readers whose comments greatly helped me to make this book what it is. In the fall of 2013, the National Humanities Center provided a welcoming environment and my fellow members of the Race, State, and History Working Group, including Julie Greene, Martha Jones, Sylvia Chong, Martin Summers and Tim Marr, gave me thoughtful feedback on a chapter from this work. It’s a privilege to learn from others. I also appreciated the invitation to share some of my work at the Americanist Speakers Series sponsored by Duke, the University of North Carolina, and other institutions around the Research Tri- angle. In the spring of 2014, the Arizona State University Institute for Human- ities Research supported me during my fellowship semester. It was a pleasure to work alongside scholars such as Desirée Garcia, Bambi Haggins, and Ersula Ore. My thanks to Sally Kitch for her leadership and Shannon Lujan for her work as my research assistant. I am grateful for the recognition from the Women’s Committee from the American Studies Association for the Gloria E. Anzaldúa Award, which was earned by an earlier version of chapter 4. Similarly, I appreciate the funding to present at the Race and Space Symposium at the University of Alabama because it gave me an opportunity to meet many other young scholars of race studies such as Ashon Crawley, Yumi Pak, Debby Katz, Merinda Simmons, and Brittney Cooper as well as allowed me to meet Queen Quet Marquette L. Goodwine, Phillip Biedler, Trudier Harris, and Houston Baker. That kind of early support matters. A version of chapter 3 was published by the University of Alabama Press in Race and Displacement: Nation, Migration, and Identity in the 21st Century. Thank you to the University of Alabama Press for the permission to reprint that work. The image in that same chapter is from the National Archives, and I value the ability to reproduce Dorothea Lange’s photograph. A huge thank you to Julie Otsuka for kindly talking to me about not only her writing but also her family. It is a gift as a scholar to be able to talk to living authors. I’d also like to give appreciation to my professors at Middlebury College and the Bread Loaf School of English: Deb Evans, Will Nash, Brett Millier, Su Lian Tan, Evan Bennett, Carol Christiansen, and Julia Alvarez, as well as Alan MacVey, Cindy Rosenthal, Arthur Little, Kevin Dunn, Michael Cadden, Oskar Eustis, and Reetika Vazirani, to name but a few who showed me the ACKNOWLEDGMENTS • xi best in scholarship, artistry, and teaching. To all those who sang with me along the way in choirs, on musical theatre stages, with jazz, classical music, and of course a cappella—particularly the Mischords—I thank you for the music that guides me. To my friends who listened to my stories about work but helped me to experience the world beyond, your presence in my life gives me joy, specifically Joyce Wagner, Lauren Stewart, Meg Allen Greenhill, and Betsy Goodchild. My first spaces in Wyomissing Hills and the Poconos of Pennsylvania shaped who I am, as did my friends who grew with me. My extended family I thank for the reminders of the benefit of being able to come home again: the Hugheses, the Gallens, and the rest of the family. To Sarah Ballard, I’m glad you have become part of my family, and to the Manions, I appreciate your welcoming me into yours. To my brother, Zach Manzella, thanks for always pushing me in everything as well as for sharing your case law knowledge, and to my par- ents, Kathy and Joe Manzella, thank you for teaching me to look for ways to make the world a better place. Finally, Lee Manion’s position as my Ursa Major orients me back to my own North Star and reminds me of why I work and why I play. Wherever we are together, I am home. INTRODUCTION The “Unprecedented” Internal U.S. Migrations of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries THE TRAIL OF TEARS (1838–39) is a name used to describe the mass removal of the Cherokee from their ancestral homelands in the eastern United States to Indian Territory in the yet-to-be-established state of Oklahoma. It func- tions in the popular imagination and in some academic texts as the archetypal example of an internal displacement. While the Removal’s forced nature is widely understood, its description as internal is problematic. The Cherokee were removed not from the United States but from sovereign territory within the larger borders of the United States in a forced march that crossed national borders. Yet many textbooks on migration still refer to the Trail of Tears as an “internal migration,” which they define as “the movement of people within a specific nation.”1 I highlight this discrepancy in order to call attention to the ways in which seemingly fixed terms, particularly “internal migrant,” “refu- gee,” and “citizen,” develop in relation to governmental practices and manipu- lations.