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Four Centuries of Immigrant Writing
Library of America
October 2009
On Sale: October 15, 2009
850 pages
ISBN: 1598530518
EAN: 9781598530513
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Political
Immigration is the essential American story. From London or
Lvov, Bombay or Beijing, Dublin or Dusseldorf, people have
come to America to remake themselves, their lives, and
their identities. Despite political obstacles, popular
indifference, or hostility, they put down roots here, and
their social, cultural, and entrepreneurial energies helped
forge the open and diverse society we live in.
The history of American immigration has often been told by
those already here. Becoming Americans tells this epic
story from the inside, gathering for the first time over
400 years of writing-from 17th-century Jamestown to
contemporary Brooklyn and Los Angeles-by first-generation
immigrants about the immigrant experience. In sum, over 80
writers create a vivid, passionate, and revealing firsthand
account of the challenges and aspirations that define our
dynamic, multicultural democracy.
In nearly a hundred entries-poems, stories, novel excerpts,
travel pieces, diary entries, memoirs, and letters-Becoming
Americans presents the full range of the experience of
coming to America: the reasons for departure, the journey
itself, the shock and spectacle of first arrival, the
passionate ambivalence toward the old country and the old
life, and above all the struggle with the complexities of
America. Arranged in chronological order by date of
arrival, this unprecedented collection presents a
collective history of the United States that is both
familiar and surprisingly new, as seen through the fresh
eyes and words of newcomers from more than forty different
countries.
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