ABSTRACT
A national approach in the study of literatures still constitutes the norm. This can be attributed to the fact that literature, or national culture more generally, has served to undergird the nation-state (→ II/38) since its emergence in Europe (→ Nation and State Building, I/16). In the American hemisphere, however, scholarship of the cultural histories of the continent cannot afford to ignore the migrant and immigrant literatures that have emerged as outcomes of the massive (enforced and voluntary) trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific im/migrations (→ Migration, I/15; Slavery, I/18), inter-American (mainly South to North) im/migrant flows (→ Transnational Migration, I/44), and national internal displacements, as well as the socioeconomic and cultural upheavals and the multiplicity of experiences and ruptures that have affected all participating peoples, communities, and nations on the continent. Correspondingly, any discussion of im/migrant literatures in the Americas must be embedded within these messy and complex histories which entangle the Americas with Africa, Asia, and Europe. Taking up Gustavo Pérez Firmat’s question “Do the Americas have a common literature?” (1990), this entry argues that one possible response to this inquiry may be that one of the common literatures of the Americas is, in fact, im/migrant literature.
