Standing at the Border

Abstract

Abstract If we were to heed Edward Said’s call to see our age as “the age of the refugee, the displaced person, mass immigration,” we would need to reimagine identity, citizenship, and human rights on global and intimate scales. This essay explores how we might redefine the boundaries of our literary canons from the specific vantage point of the refugee. How do existing frames for understanding American literary history—whether those of nation and migration, slavery and segregation, Indigenous dispossession and settler colonialism—help fathom the experience of forced migration? Focusing on the African American literary tradition in particular, and guided by the efforts of Toni Morrison and Colson Whitehead, I outline how centering the figure of the refugee leads to new meanings of home and uprooting, requiring a radical rethinking of citizenship and belonging.