Insider/Outsider Debate

After reading the four articles for class I have a lot of insight on just how much controversy surrounds the idea of multicultural literature. Some people, such as Violet Harris (Shannon,2), define multiculturalism solely in terms of race. Others, such as those explored in Cai, believe that all literature is multicultural. With this debate there is the question of who should write multicultural literature. The main question here is if there is a difference between multicultural literature written by insiders from that of pieces written by outsiders.

Insiders have the upper hand when writing multicultural literature because it is about themselves. They relate directly to the piece they are writing and they can draw upon personal experiences to formulate the piece as well. They also have a respect for the work that shows through and makes it truly authentic, because they would not want to negatively stereotype themselves. Although this is true of insiders, I feel that outsiders are able to create meaningful multicultural literature as well. If the outsider is willing to put in the time and effort to get all the facts straight and not draw upon any stereotypes they can write very effective literature.

I feel that the debate put forth in the readings and in class is a tricky one. Multicultural literature can be defined as many things, as I saw in the readings. According to the Cai article "all literature is multicultural". I would like to explore that idea more because it really stood out to me, because from the readings I myself wonder if multicultural literature is a genre of its own. I would also like to be exposed to literature on the same topic written by an outsider and one written by an insider to compare the difference. I feel that this activity would be able to help me decide if there is a noticeable difference between the two.