Part of the "Longman Topics" reader series, Considering Cultural Difference features multiethnic writing from contemporary U.S. authors centered around issues of ritual, representation, and rights.

This brief collection of readings examines cultural identity and difference with respect to race, class, gender, and nationality. Thought-provoking selections ask students to think about timely and relevant issues: integration in schools; affirmative action in the workplace, women in sports; living in a multilingual society. Three main sites of cultural difference are...

With linguistic precision and visual dexterity, Starfish explores the bottomless depths of human intimacy and loss, reconciled against the vastness of the ocean and infinity of the cosmos. What if we had to pick: "The ocean or the stars. / A reputation in truth telling or a prize in diplomacy?" ("Elements of Style"). At times rendered through the perception of a "year-rounder" residing in a tourist locale, its poems offer close-up portraits of individuals bounded by shorelines yet attuned to expansive horizons. Alert to how elemental symbols delight as well as unsettle us, the book as a whole...