The main aim of this paper is to study the concept of "ethnic family" in both August Wilson's Fences (1983) and Philip Kan Goanda's The Wash (1985) in a way that reveals the comparative elements between the two plays. Historically, ethnic theatre existed from the late eighteenth century in the United Stats. David Krasner mentions that for the first groups of settlers in the United States, such as French in Louisiana, the Italians in San Francisco and the Chinese in San Francisco, these theatres served two purposes at that time; it created a social center and it evoked remembrances of homeland (18). Therefore, ethnic theatre can be seen as: "theatre by and for minority communities, whose cultural heritages distinguish them from the Anglo-American mainstream" (Banham 327). Johnnella Butler mentions that ethnic theatre tends to seek, identify, and assert the cultural realities of these groups (xx).…show more content… Maxine Schwarts Seller points out that the development of ethnic theatre was closely connected with immigration as a social and cultural process (4).So, it focused on the immigrants' social situations and on their conflicts and struggles as well as provided education to fulfill the immigrants' intellectual needs. For these reasons, the major ethnic theatres that were created established primarily by ethnic groups in America. This paper attempts to study the concept of family in two ethnic groups. The first is the Afro-Americans as represented in one of the most important writers in this group, namely August Wilson (1945-2005). The second ethnic group is the Asian-Americans as represented in the theatre of Philip Kan Gotanda (1951-
