Daily Fare

In 17 personal essays, writers from outside the white male tradition offer varying perspectives on their place in society. Though some essays devolve into breast-beating or celebrate minor epiphanies, most are more engaging. Toi Derricotte's episodic memoir of her stint as the only African American at an artist's colony recounts some condescending white behavior: ``Now that I am the `known' black here, everything with a tinge of blackness on it is delivered to me.'' Kiana Davenport, half Hawaiian and half Caucasian, warmly remembers finding her identity at a New York City YWCA, in the company of a woman from South Africa and another from India. Leslie Lawrence, a lesbian and feminist, offers an amusing and sunny story of how she conceived a child through alternative (``there's nothing artificial about it'') insemination. Jack Agueros, reflecting on the diverse foods of multicultural New York, concludes, ``Ah, Bread, you make me realize that it is hard and wasteful to be purely ethnic in America--definitely wasteful to be totally assimilated.'' Aguero, a poet, is the author of Thirsty Day . (Apr.)