Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon and Ana Castillo’s So Far from God are both multicultural novels that look into the lives of persons belonging to dual cultures. In Song of Solomon we see the characters coming from an African-American background, whereby in So Far from God, they are Mexican-American. Multiculturalism is before anything else a theory about culture and its value (Rodrigues). Salee explains “most minority cultures today are trying to resist assimilation into the vortex of stronger, dominant cultures” (1994). We can into both novels and see how the stronger culture influence the way the characters think. Culture can be very beneficial and influential to members, nonetheless; when persons within the community distance themselves from their cultures, the begin to feel like outsiders and even begin to forget their roots and family history. This essay will explore the struggles and sacrifices that characters in the novel had to endure to be able to get ahead in life and save a bit of their heritage while trying to belong where they feel like are made to feel like foreigners.
Characters in the novel tend to dismiss their heritage and try to embrace the dominant culture in order to “fit in”. In Song of Solomon, Macon has left Virginia and has set his mind to become a man of prestige and leave the “typical African-American” lifestyle behind, his aim is to become as wealth and classy as the “white” Americans, by leaving his roots and past behind him to start anew. He