Ethnic literature of the first half of the twentieth century developed a repertoire of ethnic themes. In addition to class mobility and assimilation, generational tensions appear often (at times in ethnic trilogies), as does the conflict between arranged marriage and romantic love. Rifts between children and parents are prominent, and the often complex mother–son and father–daughter relations receive particular emphasis. Encounters with ethnic hatred or hypocrisy are frequently represented, as are friendly and amorous relations across ethnic boundaries. The attenuation of older religious beliefs and ethical standards finds manifold expression in these works. Since a central persona is often correlated to the figure of the aspiring author, difficult negotiations between the world of work and the realm of artistic creation are common. Education tends to be central, both as a school setting and as a possible symbolic area of resolution of the various tensions. Protagonists tend to be relatively young so that the general process of socialization can be described in the context of cultural conflicts and the pressures of American assimilation. Getting lost in a foreign-language cityscape or feeling lost in the vast-seeming countryside are common experiences. The tensions of poor ethnic families in working-class polyethnic neighborhoods in an often mythic-seeming America are omnipresent and at times decisive for the plot. Shame and pride may alternate in characters’ responses to their ethnicity. There are scenes in which the contrast between the ethnic group and America is dramatized and others in which it is bridged. Ethnic foodways are mentioned favorably, at times with the appropriate non-English name, and sometimes the details that are given amount to a recipe.