Race, Identity & Culture

Poet and syndicated columnist Jim Northrup. Northrup's first book is "Walking the Rez Road" (Voyageur Press), stories and poems which concern the lives of native people living on a northern Minnesota reservation. Northrup looks at 19th century treaties with 20th century eyes. His work also has to do with the aftermath of the Vietnam war. Northrup was a Marine who served in the war. (The "rez" in the title means "reservation").

TV critic David Bianculli reviews this weekend's HBO miniseries, "Laurel Avenue," about a large working class African American family in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Khanga's new book, "Soul to Soul," is about her family's multi-cultural, multi-ethnic background. Her grandparents met in jail where they were being held for political activism. Her grandfather was African-American and her grandmother Jewish. They moved to Russia, where Khanga was later born.

Abu-Jaber's first novel "Arabian Jazz" is now out. It explores the lives of two sisters in upstate New York, the children a Jordanian father and an American mother.

Terry has a discussion about the politics of identity, the strengths and limitations of social and political movements that define themselves by ethnicity, religion, gender, and sexual orientation. She talks with Ellen Willis, professor of journalism at NYU; Edward Said, professor of literature at Columbia; and Gayle Pemberton, associate director of African American studies at Princeton.

Baca co-wrote the screenplay for the new movie "Bound By Honor," about three young Chicano men from East Los Angeles and the different paths they take as they grow into adulthood. Baca is a Chicano who grew up in an orphanage in New Mexico and ended up in prison at the age of 20. He taught himself to read and write there. His collections of poetry include Black Mesa Poems and Immigrants in Our Own Land.

Ng's first novel, "Bone," is about three sisters brought up in San Francisco's Chinatown. One reviewer writes, "I learned a lot from "Bone" about the high cost of living in two worlds;" another writes that the story is "beautifully conceived, full of feeling and the sound of the streets."

Poet, journalist, and critic Luis Rodriguez's new book, "Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A." is about his participation in gang life in the 1960s in East L.A., which began at age 12. By the time he was 18, 25 of his friends had been killed. After a stint in the county jail, Rodriguez turned his back on that lifestyle. He became involved in the Chicano movement, and was encouraged to write. "Always Running," is in part an attempt to save his 16-year-old son Ramiro from gang life. Ramiro joins the conversation later in the segment.

Nishikawa's one-man show "I'm on a Mission from Buddha," is about some of the culturally-based absurdities he's endured as a Japanese-American. Nishikawa said he wrote it to answer, "all the nerdy, cliche-ridden, Asian-American images." His characters include a Japanese-American World War Two hero and a Sushi-phobic redneck. "I'm on a Mission from Buddha," can also be seen on PBS.

Rodriguez was called a traitor to his Mexican-American heritage after he published a collection of autobiographical essays, "Hunger of Memory" in 1982. He has a new book of essays, "Days of Obligation: An Argument with My Mexican Father," in which he still struggles with questions about identity.