White Maternity and a Culture of Consumption in Little Fires Everywhere

Abstract

This article seeks to illuminate the role white suburban mothers play in upholding homeland maternity and neoliberal multiculturalism in the United States. The maintenance of these two organizing power structures hinge on white motherhood, making the relationship of white mothers, race, and class an important site of analysis. The intersections of class, race, and motherhood are examined in Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, displaying the dominant economic and social interests of the U.S. and the specific power of white maternity in these systems, and making Little Fires Everywhere a useful text in which to ground this examination.