ABSTRACT
Nationality is a fiction. It is a story people tell themselves about who they are, where they live and how they got there. As such it is a complicated and highly contested text. In the contemporary US issues of national identity resonate in debates over educational reform, literary canons, multiculturalism, political correctness and artistic freedom. All of these result, at least in part, from the paradoxical manner that ‘nations, like narratives, lose their origins in the myths of time and only fully realize their horizons in the mind’s eye.’ (Bhabha, 1990:1) One’s location in this narrative, one’s ability to write oneself into the text of nationality, constitutes a form of literacy. It is an acquired language of belonging in space and time to an imaginary community. Increasingly both the left and right have recognized the educational importance of this process of national identification, as young people are socialized to understand their roles as citizens. Opinions differ radically over both the form and content of this language. Some argue that in an increasingly complex and multicultural society there is a need for a common literacy; others propose that we are moving toward a culture of many literacies.
