Through the Translator’s Lens: Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough’s Objects of Affection
For Hryniewicz-Yarbrough, language provides a stronger connection with the past than nationality alone.
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Posts Tagged: United States
Finding Freedom
We never want something more than when it has been taken away from us. The opposite of freedom is confinement.
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All My Visits from Santa
Confession: I’m a Hindu who loves Christmas.
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Every Woman Is a Nation unto Herself: A Conversation with Sabina Murray
Sabina Murray discusses the novel Valiant Gentleman, writing characters that are fundamentally different from herself, and confronting issues of colonization.
...moreCall for Submissions: Redefining Patriotism
Raised in Texas, I was taught to hold my hand over my heart when the flag was raised, to thank everyone in uniform, and to organize my life in this order; God, Country, Family. Even now, tears spring to my eyes in some sort of Pavlovian response when I hear Lee Greenwood warble, “I’m proud to […]
...moreThe Rumpus Interview with Micah Perks
Micah Perks talks about her new novel, What Becomes Us, America’s cultural and mythical heritage, and why every novel is a political novel.
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The Rumpus Interview with Vanessa Hua
Vanessa Hua discusses her debut collection, Deceit and Other Possibilities, writing fiction in order to understand life as an American-born child of immigrants, and the importance of literary community.
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Rumpus Original Fiction: State Facts for the New Age
“I’m a shock absorber for tragedy,” I say, not really knowing what I mean. “Maybe I should just move to Hawaii. I hear that’s a happy place to live.”
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The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Motel Ecstasy
Alia Volz’s artist, expat mom needed to leave Mexico and go back to the United States for a heavy-duty chemo treatment, which meant it was time for a mother-daugther road trip.
...moreBook Cover Showdown
For The Millions, Claire Cameron compares book covers from the United States and United Kingdom in an attempt to develop an “overarching theory” and explain how cultures “divide.”
...moreNational Amnesia
Race is an important and central issue in the United States, but what about abroad? It appears that both the United States and the United Kingdom are witnessing one of those moments when we confront what Toni Morrison said in an early interview about Beloved (1987), ‘something that the characters don’t want to remember, I […]
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The Sunday Rumpus Interview: Vanessa Blakeslee
I don’t want to waste readers’ time with a several hundred-page novel that’s not relevant to the wicked problems we’re facing today.
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Do You Eat Pork?: Identity Politics in the Borderlands
The ethnic conflict wears me down. I am tired of being put in boxes, tired of explaining why I don’t fit. I sleep less and less.
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The Rumpus Interview with Melissa Gira Grant
Melissa Gira Grant talks sex workers’ rights, labor politics, the novelty of women’s sexuality, and her book, Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work.
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Stepfatherhood
“He was my real dad,” she says. “I just happened to have two.”
...moreLanguage Wars
Most writers aspire to clarity in language. Politicians, of course, are the exception. Legislators are turning to language to obscure their intentions, claims Steven Poole over at the Guardian. Poole cites a trade deal between the EU and the United States that confounds the issue of tariffs known as TTIP: One might be forgiven for […]
...moreAmerican Books by State
What book do you think of when you think of Georgia? How about Washington? Business Insider has a neato map pairing each of the fifty states with the most famous book set there. The two states above correspond to Gone with the Wind and Twilight, respectively. The Rumpus shares a state with Grapes of Wrath.
...moreFifty Nifty United States with New Names and Equal Populations
The Electoral College’s credibility may have taken a blow a few years back, but Neil Freeman has a plan to fix it: simply redistrict the entire country so that all fifty states have the same amount of people in them. Okay, so maybe that legislation won’t pass anytime soon (Congress can’t get anything done these days!), […]
...moreThe 51st State?
What if Puerto Rico becomes a state? What if our flag looks like this? What if we have to change that “fifty nifty United States” song to “fifty-one nifty, fun United States”? Puerto Rico would get federal aid, but they’d also have to pay federal taxes. The Washington Post explains more here.
...moreHate’s Ugly Revival
“Over the last decade Hispanic immigrants have become the main focus of American hate groups. According to Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center, after September 11, 2001, the conservative media began discussing immigration as a national security issue, often using terms like “illegals,” “invaders,” even “potential terrorists” to describe undocumented immigrants. Then a […]
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