Where are the ethnic authors?

My Andrea Reads America project is turning out to be more complex than I thought. I am reading my way around the US in three books per state, and my original hope was to read works of fiction written by men, women, and non-Caucasian authors who are natives of the state, or at least lived there a while:

• Three works set in each US state
• Male, female, and non-Caucasian writers
• Fiction
• Authors native to or residents of the state

I gave myself these parameters for a number of reasons: setting plays a huge role in my love for literature, and I want to get to know my country better, through language and story; I love fiction – it’s my favorite; I want to read a variety of voices; and I want to read each state from the perspective of its own people, from writers whose minds have been shaped by the state’s landscape and culture.

Mainly, though, I set these criteria to give shape to what might otherwise be an unwieldy enterprise. I thought I was going to need limitations to help me narrow down the choices; already in Georgia, my home state, I can think of ten books that represent the landscape and culture, and I have no idea how I’m going to pare the list down to three.

As far as male and female authors go, or I should say as far as male and female white authors go, my parameters are doing exactly what I intended them to do: they are helping me eliminate titles so that I am not overwhelmed by all of the possibilities. It is the non-Caucasian component of the project that is introducing complexity.

I knew when I got up into Maine, the whitest state in the United States (95%) I might have trouble finding a non-Caucasian fiction author. When I began my project, I figured I had plenty of time before I get to Maine; I could sort that out when I got there.

I started at the beginning of the alphabet, in Alabama. I thought Alabama would be easy. According to the 2000 census, Alabama ranked 7th in America in its percentage of African Americans: a full 26% of the Alabama population in 2000 was African American. On top of that, Alabama has a rich racial history, was pivotal in the civil rights movement, is the birthplace of Rosa Parks, and was home to Martin Luther King, Jr. There’s lots of story there. Yet, after I easily found novels by an Alabama man and an Alabama woman, and had several more piled up I could read, all of the authors I found were white. I racked my brain trying to think of a novel set in Alabama written by an African American author, and I couldn’t. I did some digging, was not satisfied, and ultimately, I got a recommendation from an editor at Book Riot. Unlike with white authors, I did not have a large pool to select from. I had one title.

Alaska and Arizona were not as problematic. Though there still weren’t a lot of authors to choose from, I was able to find titles written by Native American and Latino authors who are also natives of their states. But as I move through Arizona and prepare myself for Arkansas, I am stuck. Once again, I’ve got plenty of selections by white men and women, but not a single title by an author of color. Or at least not one that fits my parameters.

There is an interesting discussion going on over at Book Riot, where they are running a Who Are Your Favorite Writers of Color? poll. One reader commented, “Why do we have to call them writers of color? Why can’t they just be writers?” My mom asked a similar question over Christmas – why do we keep talking about race? Aren’t we all Americans? And ultimately, yes, it would be great to get to that point, where we don’t constantly distinguish between our own people – white, black, Asian American, Latino. But the fact is, when I’m trying to find authors of color to read their perspectives, to hear their voices, and it takes me days to find just one author, that concerns me.

I am not sure what the reason is for finding so few titles by non-Caucasian authors. Are ethnic fiction writers that rare? Is the publishing industry not picking up their manuscripts, or are they publishing them but not promoting them? Or is it a failure of research on my part? Perhaps I am not looking in the right places to find more titles. I have contacted several faculty in the English department at the University of Arkansas with the hope that they might have some suggestions for me.

Meanwhile, I am working out my options for relaxing the restrictions of my project. My first priorities are setting – the narratives must be set in the state of interest – and that I read a diversity of authors, which still includes men, women, and non-Caucasian writers. The commenter on the Book Riot poll is right that they are all writers – white, black, man, woman – and my mom is right that we are all Americans. And my purpose with this project is to listen to them all: to hear many voices, to read an America that is not my story. So these parameters must stay:

• Three works set in each US state
• Male, female, and non-Caucasian writers

As for fiction and the residency of the authors, I think I’ll address those on a case by case basis. This is my project after all, not an assignment that someone else has given me; I have the power to relax my own rules.

In Arkansas, if I don’t hear back from those professors I contacted, I could read Maya Angelou’s autobiography from her Arkansas years, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings; though it doesn’t fit my fiction criterion, hers is an excellent book. Or I could stick with fiction and read Sugar, an Arkansas-set novel by African American author Bernice McFadden. McFadden was born and raised in New York, not Arkansas, but the blurb for her book excites me:

Sugar brings a Southern African-American town vividly to life, with its flowering magnolia trees, lingering scents of jasmine and honeysuckle, and white picket fences that keep strangers out–but ignorance and superstition in.

In fact, the blurb makes me want to skip out of the Arizona desert right now and luxuriate in the languid South.

And with that, I think I’ve made my choice.

If you enjoy reading diverse authors, please participate in Book Riot’s Who are Your Favorite Writers of Color? poll – it will be open through Sunday January 12, 2014. And if you have any recommendations for my Andrea Reads America reading project, please leave your suggestions in the comments.

I am reading America: 3 books from each state in the US with the following authorships represented – women, men, and non-Caucasian writers. To follow along, please visit me at andreareadsamerica.com.