Becoming Americans

My review of Becoming Americans: Four Centuries of Immigrant Writing, edited by Ilan Stavans, is out now in the Christian Science Monitor. Here’s an excerpt:

Many of the selections describe the obstacles, and sometimes opportunities, of learning to use American English. To be an exiled writer, says Joseph Brodsky, the Nobel Prize–winning poet, “is like being a dog or a man hurtled into outer space in a capsule (more like a dog, of course, than a man, because they will never retrieve you). And your capsule is your language.”

Of course, the contributors to this book have more to worry about than just language. Some are indentured servants. Some are slaves. Others struggle with lack of money, poorly paid and degrading work, and lack of support from compatriots who have come before. The fact that these authors survived and wrote well about their experiences makes them among the most successful immigrants. But whatever successes they may have had in the Old World, and whatever successes may come in the New, the memory of being scared and vulnerable and out of their element lends their work a refreshing humility.