SOURCE: “Naming, Magic and Documentary: The Subversion of the Narrative in Song of Solomon, Ceremony and China Men,” in Feminist Re-Visions: What Has Been and Might Be, edited by Vivian Patraka and Louise A. Tilly, Women's Studies Program, The University of Michigan, 1983, pp. 26-42.

In the following essay, Rabinowitz examines magic realism in works by American minority women.

I write as an outsider. As a woman, I will always be an outsider within patriarchal culture, as a white woman, I will always be an outsider to the experiences of the oppressed minorities in America; however, as a feminist, I wish to begin bridging those gaps which racism has created among all women, to eradicate sexism. The work of feminist critics needs to be expanded to include understandings of racism, class bias and cultural imperialism as they modify women's experiences.

Frantz Fanon (1967) suggests that the awareness of racial difference...