Identity lessons : contemporary writing about learning to be American / edited by Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Jennifer Gillan.

Includes index.

Names / Ruth Stone -- Pokeberries / Ruth Stone -- Beets / Tiffany Midge -- Magnalia Christi Americana / T.H.S. Wallace -- daughters / Lucille Clifton -- fury / Lucille Clifton -- Dear Mama / Sonia Sanchez -- Linked / Naomi Shihab Nye -- I Go Back to May 1937 / Sharon Olds -- The Portrait / Stanley Kunitz -- Cracked Portraits / Agha Shahid Ali -- Those Were the Days / Philip Levine -- The Substitute / Stephen Dunn -- The Liar / Tobias Wolff -- Daddy, We Called You / Maria Mazziotti Gillan -- Sangre 24: A Legacy / Leroy V. Quintana -- Working Class / Lenard D. Moore -- from attic / Justin Vitiello -- Always Running / Luis J. Rodriguez -- Company Outing / Diana Der-Hovanessian -- Tending / Elizabeth Alexander.

Identity Lessons features selections by Sherman Alexie, Marie Howe, Amiri Baraka, and a wide array of our finest contemporary writers. These stories and poems examine the struggle between the need to belong and the undeniable influence of each individual's cultural roots. In pieces that question the common definition of "American," some of the sharpest and most original voices writing today give their ethnic perspectives on growing up in America.