Multiculturalism Versus "Multi-national-ness " revisits the encounters of American writers with Soviet nationalities policy—Moscow's promise of a class-based solution to racial prejudice, coupled with its promotion of minority languages and cultures. The project revolves around a shift: While in the 1920s and 30s, such figures as Langston Hughes and Horace Kallen looked to Moscow as a beacon of equality, in the wake of Stalin's horrors and McCarthy's witch hunts, most American intellectuals grew disillusioned with the USSR. I argue that, as a result, fervor for socialist internationalism receded, giving way to notions of liberal pluralism and cultural authenticity.

Noting the global excitement prompted by the Bolshevik Revolution, Chapter One examines the appeal of the Soviet Union in 1920s America, particularly among black and Jewish authors in New York. It delves into the writings of several intellectuals who witnessed firsthand Soviet "multi-national-ness" (mnogonatsional'nost'), including Kallen, Sen Katayama, and Claude McKay. Chapter Two recounts Hughes' 1932 visit to the USSR, where he assisted with an aborted film on African American struggles. The chapter then turns to Hughes' 1956 description of the film's script—according to him, incongruous with the realities of African American life—and presents for the first time Russian archival documents that refute this much-cited account.

Hughes' questionable invocation of authenticity—the notion that understanding a community requires membership in that community—sets the stage for the post-World War II period, in which ethnic ties gradually displaced radical ones, and the U.S. and USSR accused each other of violating minority rights. After tracing the emergence of Soviet anti-Semitism and the subsequent embrace of liberal pluralism among several New York Intellectuals, Chapter Three examines the efforts of Irving Howe both to recapture his previously muted Jewish origins and to define an anti-Soviet socialism. Chapter Four opens with a discussion of liberal pluralism vis-à-vis Asian American culture, focusing on C. Y. Lee's 1957 novel Flower Drum Song—the adaptation of which into a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical is frequently cited as a foundational moment for Asian American culture. The chapter then proposes an alternate foundational moment—the 1930 Broadway production of the Soviet futurist play Roar China. The concluding Chapter Five discusses how, since the end of the Cold War, American multiculturalism has gained global currency—in stark contrast to the 1920s and 30s, when Soviet "multi-national-ness" had the upper hand. The chapter then presents the 2006 film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan as just the latest in a decades-long exchange between American and Soviet models of difference. The dissertation closes by urging the resuscitation of this exchange.