The American literature of deracination

Subconsciously deracination probably has more to do with a desire not to have one’s visual field constantly invaded by inconveniently different faces—relationships that are fraught, unfixed, capable of producing equal measures of helplessness and guilt. But there is also, perhaps almost too easy to ignore, the question of scale—the scale our lives are measured against, the fundamental American desire to stand out on the horizon, alone with our thoughts, to be a figure against the visual field around us. -- Jess Row

White Flights: American Fictions Racial Landscape
by Jess Row, Boston Review, August 5, 2013