Ethnic Americans from African America, Jewish American, and Native American backgrounds who attempt to merge with mainstream America face the very obvious problems of historically entrenched racism and anti-Semitism. Three modern American writers, Philip Roth, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Toni Morrison, have chosen a form of narrative that balances a longing for inclusion with a deep-seated anger toward the larger white or, in Roth's case, gentile social structure. This study of six of Silko, Morrison and Roth's longer works focuses on their use of a survival narrative motif as a way of clarifying their ethnic positioning.