The Immigrant Experience in North American Literature

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The Immigrant Experience in North American Literature Carving Out a Niche

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Katherine B. Payant, Toby Rose

Book Code: GM0891

ISBN: 0-313-30891-8

ISBN-13: 978-0-313-30891-8

DOI:

224 pages

Greenwood Press

Publication: 5/30/1999

List Price: $110.95 (UK Sterling Price: £65.00)

Availability: In Stock

Media Type: Hardcover

Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4

Subjects:

Series Title: Contributions to the Study of American Literature

Series Number: 4

Reviews:

The level of analysis throughout the collection is generally high, and even the more summary pieces are good introductions to noncanonical books often ignored in the classroom and in mainstream literary journals.
—Choice
This collection of 12 essays delivers well on its title's promise....Few existing studies compare immigrant literatures from the past and present, but this book shows how current literature differs from preceding work....the collection offers a valuable comparative structure and useful analyses of the various ways that immigrants attempt to reconcile their ethnic heritage with that of their adopted country.
—Multicultural Review

Description: Although many studies have been done of individual authors, at present few works exist which compare different immigrant literatures from the past and present. This work draws broad conclusions about the changes in American attitudes toward immigration and diverse cultures that are reflected in the literature. This book examines the representation of the immigrant experience in North American literature. Most of the chapters discuss the portrayal of particular ethnic groups by specific authors during a century of American and Canadian history. One essay highlights controversies among recent writers and critics concerning how their cultures should be portrayed, and the introductory and concluding essays provide historical, cultural, and literary contexts for a comparative approach to North American immigrant literature. The expert contributors expose the reader to a variety of immigrant experiences in the literature of past and present, experiences in which the characters attempt to reconcile their ancestral heritage with that of their adopted land. Variations of three basic stances can be found in these works: the essentialist, rejecting the values of the dominant culture and resisting assimilation; the assimilationist, embracing the attitudes and behaviors of the new culture; and the hybridist, incorporating the old and new. The book additionally explores such topics as race, class, and gender, as well as the intergenerational conflict found in much immigrant literature.

Table of Contents:

Preface by Toby Rose
Introduction: Stories of the Uprooted by Katherine Payant
Interdependent Selves: Mary Antin, Elizabeth Stern, and Jewish Women's Immigrant Autobiography by Wendy Zierler
Justifying Individualism: Anzia Yezierska's BREAD GIVERS by Martin Japtok
Fighting the Trolls on the Dakota Plains: The Ecstasy and the Agony of Norwegian Immigrants' Lives in O.E. Rolvaag's GIANTS IN THE EARTH by Raychel Haugrud Reiff
JASMINE or the Americanization of an Asian: Negotiating between Cultural Arrest and Moral Decay in Immigrant Fiction by Gönül Pultar
Developing Negatives: Jamaica Kincaid's LUCY by Jacqueline Doyle
Speaking and Listening: The Immigrant as Spy Who Comes in from the Cold by June Dwyer
Repositioning the Stars: Twentieth Century Narratives of Asian American Immigration by Qun Wang
Borderland Themes in Sandra Cisneros's WOMAN HOLLERING CREEK by Katherine Payant
Crossroads Are Our Roads: Paule Marshall's Portrayal of Immigrant Identity Themes by Toby Rose
Motherland Versus Daughterland in Judith Ortiz Cofer's THE LINE OF THE SUN by Carmen Faymonville
OBASAN and Hybridity: Necessary Cultural Strategies by Matthew Beedham
Becoming Americans: Gish Jen's TYPICAL AMERICAN by Zhou Xiaojing
Epilogue by Toby Rose
Selected Bibliography
Index

LC Card Number: 98-46823

LCC Class: PS153

Dewey Class: 810


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