Abstract | This article explores the ways in which stories serve a structuring function in three Portuguese American memoirs. The article also examines the use of stories as a way to weave together the gap between memory and inherited memory (Hirsch, 2012), arguing that the stories produce texts that carefully choreograph between inherited family stories and inherited cultural memories, creating a layering effect. The conclusion demonstrates how the inclusion of collective memories within individual memory present in the text generates a narrative community beyond the nation state(s). (English)
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