This chapter examines the positionality of Portuguese-Canadian and Portuguese-American writers vis-à-vis mainstream literature in English while exploring the presence, prevalence, use and abuse of common clichés and tropes in Portuguese North American Literature and their relation to a supposedly authentic Portuguese identity and tradition. It considers broader systemic issues found in so-called emigrant, ethnic and multicultural writing that perpetuate facile, simplistic and outdated identity markers and tropes that lead to monolithic and fossilized paradigms of (Portuguese) beingness. Frozen in time, the fictionalized worlds presented by Portuguese North American writers only serve to further accentuate the Portuguese “difference”, while contributing to increased ghettoization. At the same time, the popularity of such clichés functions as expected tropes reinforcing the perception of a static cultural identity which is then commodified, circulated and consumed as a product of Portuguese exceptionalism. In this chapter we will consider the following questions: What are the most common clichés and how do they affirm an identity anchored on difference? How does this difference relate to the way writers, readers and the literary establishment promote ethnicity within North American multicultural societies? And lastly, how does culture commodification and literary tourism fit this discussion?