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1455 Redefining AmericaThese questions are not new. They have been asked since the earliest days of what we call American history, a time period that precedes the founding of the nation. This chapter%u2014which we%u2019ve titled Redefining America%u2014offers literature and rhetoric from the first two decades of the twenty-first century. Logic might locate it at the end of the book, but we%u2019ve decided that it belongs at the beginning of the chronological chapters because the works here provide context for the chronological and thematic study of literature and rhetoric that follows.In her 2019 book This America, historian Jill Lepore quotes Frederick Douglass%u2019s understanding of this nation: %u201cA Government founded upon justice, and recognizing the equal rights of all men; claiming no higher authority for its existence, or sanction from its laws, than nature, reason and the regularly ascertained will of the people; steadily refusing to put its sword and purse in the service of any religious creed or family, is a standing offense to most of the Governments of the world, and to some narrow and bigoted people among ourselves.%u201d According to Lepore, %u201cThese words are no less true a century and a half later on. . . . [A] nation founded on universal ideas will never stop fighting over the meaning of its past and the direction of the future. That doesn%u2019t mean the past or future is meaningless, or directionless, or that anyone can afford to sit out the fight. The nation, as ever, is the fight.%u201d These words are helpful as we consider the challenges and changes the nation faces today, including income inequality, escalating gun violence, changing demographics, political polarization, globalization, the connection between social media and isolation, the climate crisis, multiple refugee crises, and more.To go a step further, taking a look at twenty-first-century American literature helps us understand the beauty and complexity of modern American life from myriad perspectives. Writers and artists have always told the story of our country, and the poets, novelists, journalists, critics, artists, and thinkers included in this chapter tell it from a broader perspective than ever before. As this nation grapples with the legacy of its mistreatment of and theft from American Indians, Natalie Diaz and Robin Wall Kimmerer center and celebrate Native cultures and their stories. While racial and ethnic conflicts remind us that the struggle for equal rights is not over, Ross Gay evokes the breath that is common to all humans, Richard Blanco re-creates the delicate dance of the immigrant hovering between one home and another, and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah addresses economic inequality through satire%u2014and zombies. As American soldiers continue to fight in wars abroad, we have the voice of soldier and poet Brian Turner, whose haunting poem describes the challenges facing a soldier returning from one of those wars to face the mundane realities of everyday life, while Martin Espada offers hope that the world can heal and bullets can be melted into bells.This chapter also includes a photo essay chronicling the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Snapshots of shuttered cities, the burdened health-care system, and the generous presence of essential workers encapsulate this strange American moment and help us consider what lessons to carry forward.Copyright %u00a9 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.