美国西裔文学历史悠久,起源于西班牙对美洲的殖民征服,早于美国白人主流文学。由于文化、地理、政治和种族等原因,主流英语读者群对西裔文学了解甚少。20世纪以来,西裔作家开始使用英语或者双语进行创作,西裔文学才逐渐引起文学界的关注。半个多世纪以来,特别是近30年来,西裔文学获得了长足的发展,不少西裔文学作品已经摘取普利策奖等重要文学奖项,西裔文学及其研究受到美国文学研究界乃至世界文学研究界的广泛关注。流散主题和文化杂糅是当代西裔文学叙述的重要内容,不同族裔文化的冲突与整合成为书写的重点。 American Hispanic literature has a long history, originated in the Spanish conquest of the Americas, earlier than the white American mainstream literature. Due to cultural, geographical, political and ethnic reasons, mainstream English readership has little knowledge of Hispanic literature. Since the 20th century, Hispanic writers began to use English or bilingual writing, Hispanic literature gradually attracted the attention of the literary community. For more than half a century, especially in the past 30 years, great progress has been made in the study of Hispanic literature. Many of the Hispanic literary works have already won such important Pulitzer Prize awards. Hispanic literature and his research have been well received by the American literature research community And even the world literature research community. The theme of diaspora and cultural mixing are the important contents of contemporary Hispanic literature narration. The conflict and integration of different ethnic cultures become the focus of writing.