One of the timeless phrases with which the United States -- its history, its perspective, its reality -- is identified is "e pluribus unum," or, "from many, one." These words describe both how the United States and its literature have evolved over the centuries -- through the coming together of many traditions to form a nation and a literature that are different from the ones that have existed a century, a decade, even a year before.
All of U.S. literature is multicultural, multiethnic, multiracial from precolonial days to the present. At one moment in history or another, one grouping may have defined multiculturalism, in that timeframe, such as the European cultures that flowed into the United States 100 years ago, and those of Asia and Latin America in the year 2000.
Today, American literature is rich in newer traditions -- and some that have been transformed. Venues, sensibilities, themes have changed as well. In considering developments within Arab American, Asian American, black American, Hispanic American and Native American writing, this journal introduces a global audience to the continuously evolving multicultural literature in our day, and to a selection of gifted creative talents, as the process of renewal continues in U.S. literature in the new century.
