Race, Region, and Midwestern Identity in Era Bell Thompson's American Daughter and Africa, Land of My Fathers

Abstract

This article examines Era Bell Thompson's autobiography, American Daughter (1946), and her travel memoir, Africa, Land of My Fathers (1954), to consider how she articulates the relationship between race and region. My approach to American Daughter examines how African American western women contribute to a "re-presentation" of region apart from dominant (white, male) representations. Using Katherine McKittrick's ideas as a framework, I argue that American Daughter revises traditional presentations of region to reflect the African American woman's experiences in the early twentieth-century Midwest. The analysis of American Daughter leads into a discussion about how Thompson represents the relationship between race and place in Africa, Land of My Fathers. In Africa, as in American Daughter, Thompson, while traveling the continent, experiences a palpable double estrangement that reflects the tensions between her ethnic and national identities. Thompson's journey through the continent represents a reversal of the frontier journey. Thompson's African memoir also sheds light on the significance of regional identity in global interactions during the mid-twentieth century.