Abstract: The study deals with the peculiarities of representation of reality in the researches of immigrant writers, who moved from Latin America to the United States. The main focus was made on depicting the peculiarities of Dominican-American and Cuban American prose. Dominican American and Cuban American writing were compared with Chicano literature. The complexity of searching for new identity was shown. To investigate the features of American ethnic literature of ethnic American origin, we used the comparative method, the method of investigation of historical context for the interpretation of literary facts, the method of integral analysis of literary works. To reveal the specific character of Hispanic American literary works the author based his investigation and conclusions on the unity of historical, cultural and literary approaches to the study of literature. The representation of the phenomenon of otherness in Cuban American, Hispanic American and Dominican American was studied in the light of the categories of transculturation and acculturation. The difficulty of searching for new identity was portrayed on the example of the fate of the characters of the novels of Cuban American and Dominican American writers. The author adheres to the viewpoint that the complexity of searching for a new identity is influenced by the circumstances in which the immigrants found themselves in the USA as well as by what they had to face in their native country. The individual experiences described in the works under study mirror the common mood of the whole generation of immigrants. The immigrants are constantly reconsidering their values. Hybrid identity is shaped under the influence of cultural borders. The results of the given research may find application in teaching special courses on the border of literature and cross-cultural communication and in updating the courses of contemporary American Literature.