DescriptionThis dissertation examines how changes in migratory patterns under contemporary globalization have transformed late twentieth-century narratives of migration. This dissertation argues that post-1980s narratives radically depart from earlier forms of immigrant writing in that they attend to migratory journeys formed by dwelling across multiple nations. Traditionally, immigrant literature, in particular U.S. immigrant fiction, has been studied in light of the challenges of integration and permanent settlement. The tension arising from the immigrant subject’s ties to the country of origin and host country have been central to critical approaches to narratives of immigration. This dissertation argues that contemporary narratives complicate such binary logic by asking us to conceive border crossing movements in more global and multi-local terms. I argue that this newly emergent spatial logic is pronounced in two major ways. By focusing on the geographical orientation of contemporary migrant writing, this dissertation traces the changing place of the U.S. from a place of final destination and permanent settlement towards a node within a circuit of movements. I further argue that such expansion in geography is linked to the rise of transnational structures of intimacy within contemporary fiction for envisioning social and communal life. In order to examine multi-local migration as a global phenomenon affecting the lives of various diasporic populations, this dissertation employs a comparative frame for studying migrant writing. By illuminating inter-connections among a disparate body of ethnic writing rarely discussed together, it foregrounds the importance of a multi-ethnic approach for a nuanced understanding of migration in today’s globalized world.