U.S. Literature took on new dimensions after the Second World War, reflecting both the political realities of the Cold War and the social pressures of American domestic life. Worldwide competition between capitalism and communism was embodied in mounting hostility between two nuclear superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union.

At the same time, postwar pressures produced a drive for racial and social equality in the U.S. that was reflected in the educational, intellectual, and creative spheres of society.

New political divisions, especially over U.S. conduct of the war in Vietnam, catalyzed a new generation of radical resistors by the end of the 1960’s.

Along with these changes came demands for freedom of expression, a relaxing of moral constraints, and sometimes a new “life style” activism including communal living, drug use, and vehicles of cultural expression from mystical gurus to protest music.

Expanding a Publisher’s Vision

In 1984 West End Press met one of its most important writers, working-class Chicana lesbian feminist Cherrie Moraga, at a book fair in Minneapolis. Since that time, the press has published four drama collections written by Moraga: Giving Up the Ghost, 1987; Heroes and Saints and Other Plays, 1994; Hungry Woman and Heart of the Earth, 2002; and Watsonville and Circle in the Dirt, 2002. All told, Moraga’s plays have sold nearly 20,000 copies. Beyond this, Moraga kept the press energized with her remarkable wit, stamina, collective spirit, and intellectual acuity.

Also in 1984, John Crawford of West End Press left the Midwest where he had lived for seven years and returned to his hometown of Los Angeles. As a result of a year’s sojourn there and elsewhere in California he eventually published books of poems by California multicultural authors Nellie Wong, Bill Oandasan, Wendy Rose, Naomi Quiñonez, Michele T. Clinton, Julia Stein, Sesshu Foster, and Russell Leong. Several years later, first-time editors Clinton, Quinonez, and Foster compiled an anthology, Invocation L.A.: Urban Multicultural Poetry, for West End Press. This was the first poetry anthology from Los Angeles to prominently feature multicultural writers, or for that matter more than two or three women.

In 1985, West End relocated in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Added to the multicultural list were a number of Southwestern writers. These included Laguna Pueblo poet Paula Gunn Allen, Pueblo novelist Robert L. Perea, Navajo poets Luci Tapahonso and Laura Tohe, Choctaw-Cherokee novelist Louis Owens, and Chicano poets E. A. Mares, Jim Sagel, Lisa D. Chavez and Levi Romero.

In addition, between 1983 and 2003 West End has published other books by nationally recognized multicultural writers including Jimmie Durham, Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Adrian C. Louis, Duane Niatum, Diane Glancy, Arlene Biala, nila northSun, Lance Henson, and Joseph Bruchac. We also published an experimental novel by Meridel Le Sueur, The Dread Road, in 1991; it reflects a Southwestern multicultural background and continues to impress as part jeremiad, part terrible prophecy of a world still to come.