A comparative reading of the novels Native speaker (1995), by the North American writer Chang-rae Lee, and O sol se põeem São Paulo (2007), by Bernardo Carvalho, allows for a reevaluation of how minority identities have been constructed in the two American megalopolises New York and São Paulo. The plotlines of both novels hinge on the identity crisis of a second-generation Asian immigrant (from Korea in one case and Japan in the other) who is seeking to negotiate his American identity (speaking in hemispheric terms) in terms of his family's origin and language. However, despite the similar anxieties over assimilation present in both novels, they both reveal significant differences regarding the ways in which the United States and Brazil have responded to cultural difference even as they challenge national myths of inclusion and belonging.
cultural difference; race; national identity; Bernardo Carvalho; Chang-rae Lee