ABSTRACT
Indigenous people’s ways of coping with the dominant Euro-American society are not just reflected thematically in the literary works of native writers of the Southwest but are also mirrored in the narrative structure of these works. It is true that a considerable number of works by Native American and Chicano/a authors tend to employ a conventional, “Western,” linear, unified plot structure. However, the majority of works by the indigenous southwestern authors discussed in this study show the dilemma of constructing identity in a region characterized by various native and non-native influences by employing a mix of conventional, chronological, or appropriated AngloAmerican paradigms as well as native, tribal, or local ones.
