Anzia Yezierska's Short Story 'The Lost Beautifulness'

In the generations of the immigrant labor of a Slovak family, the Dorejacks demonstrates the tough labor in America. In the novel “Out This Furnace” a captivating, non-fiction story, Thomas Bell suggests that immigrant labor in the early days was tough and factors like labor inequality, the relationship between companies and politics, and essential money shaped immigrants freedom.

The Glass Castle is a 2005 book by Jeannette Walls. The memoir explains the author’s life, growing up with her family most especially with her parents who could be described as nomads and deadbeats. Notwithstanding the difficult upbringing, her siblings and she had, Jeannette perseveres and becomes a successful Journalist living in New York City. She explains how happy, but conflicted because her parents refuse money from her and live as homeless people. She writes the memoir to work through her feelings and share’s her story. Some topics that I could identify in the text are: poverty, teenage pregnancy and child rights.

In Bread Givers by Anzia Yezierska, Yezierska depicts an immigrant family living in poverty during the 1920s. The narrator Sara Smolinsky, the youngest daughter out of a family of six watches her family go through marriage, poverty, death, and the evolution of the family dynamic. Sara watches all three of her sisters being forced to marry to men that don’t love because of their status. In the end, Sara decides to move out of the house at 17 to escape the oppressive environment of her Orthodox Jewish father, so she could pursue her dream of becoming an educated teacher. The Bread Givers shows the disconnect between the first and second generation, the alternative gender roles in an immigrant household, and the importance of marriage. Overall, this book shows a different viewpoint of the 20th century.

I believe the difficult journey for immigrants and all they had to do to start over in a new country was worth the hardships they faced. This is because after all their hard work, things slowly but surely, started to get better.

"The Girl Who Survived" by Carol Bierman and Bronia Brandman. This book is about a family who went into hiding during the holocaust. Bronia starts of at the age of nine years old and ends up being the only one out of her family to survive. Bronia along with Mila, Mendek, and Bonzeka are the main characters in this book. The story was about the family and unsuspected new friends and what they experienced long the way. Her and her family get deported the "ghetto" because they were Jewish. There life was flipped upside down; she came from a decently wealthy bakeground. With everything going down around them it was a harsh awkening for all of them. She became a goods smuggler to help her family services. Even with all the danger and risker around

They paid the three hundred dollars and sign the contract with the businessman, and they fall into the businessman’s trap. Mousseline, an old Lithuanian immigrant, told them, “The family had paid fifteen hundred dollars for it, and it had not cost the builders five hundred …. since it had been built, no less than four families that their informant could name had tried to buy it and failed.” (78) They are not the only one fall into this business trick, there are many other immigrants get fooled by these businessmen. The four families before them are immigrants from German, Irish, Bohemians, and Poles; which are the most popular place that immigrants came from during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in America. There are many other traps around America that deceive the immigrants because their weakness of not knowing English and the desire of getting a great life in America which lead them unpreparedly get fooled by the businessmen. These traps prevented the immigrants from leaving America, because of the significant amount of debt that they have to pay each month, which forced them to keep working and become the slave of this capitalistic society in America. Unfortunately, even they work very hard, in most of the time they will not get anything in return, such that Jurgis’s family cannot even keep the house at the of the book and many of family members’ health destroyed by the harsh working conditions in the

The United States, during the 19th century, was a growing nation with much promise to prosper and urbanize. An integral aspect that contributed to the nation's expansion were immigrants, Individuals who were seeking more opportunities came from countries such as China, Germany, Ireland, etc. to work in the United States and earn a better living. In 1830, John Downe, an immigrant from England, is an example of a individual emigrating their home country to improve their life. John, in a letter to his wife trying to persuade his family to emigrate as well uses a mixture of tone, atmosphere, and pathos to envoke an overall hopeful but yet melancholy mood. To begin with, John begins to describe an experience in the country where he states that the there was an abundance of food available which could be bought for

98 years ago, in June 17, 1917, “The Immigrant” is a silent romantic comedy short film, which was written, directed by Charlie Chaplin, was released in America. It is a story of an immigrants encounter on the journey to America and his love story with a young woman he met on the boat. Charlie Chaplin’s the immigrant tended to show the society the view of life from an immigrant who has experienced many adversity and scenarios in order to look for understanding and sympathy from people to the immigrants as himself.

Willa Cather’s novel, My Ántonia sheds light on the topic of immigration. Immigrants have many different reasons for why they might migrate to the United States. Some were trying to escape something from their old country such as avoiding a war, trouble with the law, or shame as is the case of the Russians Pavel and Peter. Reasons for immigrating could also relate to chasing the American dream as is the case with the Shimerdas. Challenges and hardships encountered by foreigners immigrating into the United States are demonstrated through Jake’s experiences with the Shimerdas, the Russians, and other foreigners.

Immigrants that are new to the American society are often so used to their own culture that it is difficult for them to accept and adapt to the American culture. The language that is spoken, as well as the various holidays and traditions that Americans entertain themselves with, aren’t what most immigrants would deem a neccessity for their life to move on. Nonetheless, they still have to be accustomed to these things if they have any chance of suceeding in a land where knowledge is key. The story “My Favorite Chaperone” written by Jean Davies Okimoto, follows the life of a young girl who along with her brother Nurzhan, her mother known as mama, and her father whom she refers to as Papi have immigrated to the United States from Kazakhstan, through a dating magazine. Throughout the story each family member faces problems that causes them to realize just how different their life is know that they’ve immigrated.. Even though Jean Davies Okimoto doesn’t tell the reader this, based on textual evidence we are

Past, present, and future is what we are told to think about, but are we overlooking the past? We seem to get caught up in thinking about what we are doing now, and what we will be doing in ten years, but I think the most important thing is to know your past. It’s critical to understand what you, and other people’s ancestors did before. Remembrance is important to know your history and so you do not let the terrible things recur.

In Anzia Yezierska’s novel Bread Givers, protagonist Sara Smolinsky exemplifies a rags to riches tale. From a young age it is clear that Sara is driven to be a successful and independent woman. She goes against her father, the patriarch of the family, and decides that she will make her own decisions. This isolates herself from the rest of her sisters as they accept their father’s judgement and allow him to control their lives. Sara truly started with nothing as she was forced to pay her way through college. To further drive home the idea of Sara being self made and achieving the American dream, Yezierska juxtaposes the Smolinsky household on Hester Street with Sara’s living arrangements after attending college. By using vivid imagery and compelling diction to contrast the settings, Yezierska presents an inspirational account that showcases Sara’s rise from poverty.

In the short story America and I, the author Anzia Yezierska writes about a Russian girl that comes to America to have a chance to be successful. The Russian immigrant and many other immigrants who migrate over to America believe that it is the land of opportunity, where dreams become reality. She came to America to pursue the so called American dream, her dream was to be able to do the things she was not able to do in Russia, and to take advantage of opportunities that her family members were not offered. Yezierska has the Russian immigrant say that, “America was a land of living hope, woven dreams, aflame with longing and desires.” (Yezierska). This quote is a glimpse of how America is pictured by this new comer. She envisioned herself

The pursuit of dreams has played a big role in self-fulfillment and internal development and in many ways, an individual 's reactions to the perceived and real obstacles blocking the path to a dream define the very character of that person. This theme is evident in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, which is about the search for identity. A woman of a mixed ethnicity resides in several communities, each playing an important role and serve as crucial influences on her life. During the story, she endures two failed relationships and one good relationship, dealing with disappointment, death, the wrath of nature and life’s unpredictability.

The Help is an example of American drama film. It was released in August 9, 2011 and its length was 146 minutes and directed by Tate Taylor. The film was adapted to a novel, where there has been a long tradition of African- American women serving as “The Help” for upper-middle class white woman and their families. Descriptions of historical events of the early activities of thecivil rights movement are peppered throughout the novel, as are interactions between the maids and their white employers. The movie clearly exposes the many ways that the human dignity of African- American maids was ignored. They had suffered daily embarrassment but were able to claim their own way dignity.