Freedom is Not Free in Bread Givers
Anzia Yezierska in Bread Givers and "Children of Loneliness" explores the theme of reconciling assimilation to American culture and retaining her cultural heritage. "Richard F. Shepard asserted in the New York Times that Yezierska’s people…did not want to find themselves. They wanted to lose themselves and find America" (Gale Database 8). Rachel and Sara, the main characters, move ahead by employing the America motto of hard work will pay off. The problem for both is losing their Jewish identity in the process. Yezierska, like the female characters, experienced the loneliness of separation from the Jewish people when she rose above poverty. "I am alone because I left my own world" (Ebest 8). She explores this issue repeatedly in her work trying to find a solution to a problem with no easy answer.
In order to obtain religious, social, political, and equality 23 million Jews immigrated to America during the years between 1880 and 1920 (Chametzky, 5). Anzia Yezierska wrote about her experiences as a poor immigrant in her fictional work becoming a voice of the Jewish people in the1920s. She struggled to obtain an education that allowed her to rise above her family’s poverty and gain a measure of autonomy. Rachel and Sara, the female protagonists, mirror the author’s life going from struggling immigrant to college graduate. Yezierska uses her own experiences to portray the Jewish immigrant experience with a woman’s perspective. She successfully gained a commercial following that allowed her to mediate the cultural differences between the mainstream culture and the Jewish people that helped resolve differences between the established Americans and these new immigrants for a time (Ebes...
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...iable to a particular ethnic identification. Freedom in America is not free; each immigrant ethnic group loses their culture identity eventually but they also add to the diverse American voice.
Works Cited
Chametzky, Jules. Introduction. ." Jewish American Literature. Ed. Jules Chametzky,
John Felstiner, Hilene Flanzbaum, and Kathryn Hellerstein. New York: W.W. Norton, 2001. 1-23.
Ebest, Ron. "Anzia Yezierska and the Popular Periodical Debate Over the Jews."
The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnics Literature of the United States. Spring 2000
Gale Literary Database. 2001. Gale Group
Yezierska, Anzia. Bread Givers. New York: Persea Books, 1925.
---. "Children of Loneliness." Jewish American Literature. Ed. Jules Chametzky,
John Felstiner, Hilene Flanzbaum, and Kathryn Hellerstein. New York: W.W. Norton, 2001. 233-244.
Although she always denied claims of having a distinct Jewish calling, being a second generation German Jewish immigrant, she has always been associated with Jewish New York. Wald has never laid claim to being a crusader for the Jewish people, and yet most of the information published about her comes from the Jewish community trying to sell her as an activist for the Jewish cause. Marjorie N. Feld gives readers a critical look into the life and work of woman dedicated to revealing the similarities of people not their differences. Lillian Wald’s story is an important one because she spent her life working towards a universal vision that would group people together and yet remembered by her difference from other progressive reformers of the time, being Jewish. In this book Feld describes Wald not as person fighting for a particular group, but a person fighting for humanity's equality.
Takaki, R. T. (1993). A different mirror: A history of multicultural America. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.
Throughout Anzia Yezierska’s novel “Bread Givers,” the character Sara Smolinsky goes through an elliptical journey from a rebellious youth appalled by the individual limitations of her cultural heritage to her gradual acceptance of her inability to escape her ancestry. At first rejecting her Orthodox Eastern European Jewish culture, Sara views the world in terms of a sole American identity. As ...
Takaki, Ronald T. "8 Searching for Gold Mountains." A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America. Boston: Little, Brown, 1993. N. pag. Print.
Schaefer, Richard, T. Racial and Ethnic Groups. 12th ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2010. Print.
Racism is defined by merriam-webster.com as ‘1. A belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race. 2. Racial prejudice or discrimination.’ Racism exists among all races and ethnicities, but most prominently between whites and blacks. The most basic cause of racism begins with the idea that there is something different between different ethnicities. Though that thought is illogical, it is one that seems inevitable. The amount of hatred one can hold against another because of the difference in their skin pigmentation is uncanny. There are an uncountable amount of sources on racism to be found just by merely looking on the internet. In The Bluest Eye, a novel written by Toni Morrison, alone one can find a series amount of racist comments and “ways of thinking”, but beyond that racism can be found in poems, films, and everyday life.
Racism comes in many forms ad can be expressed in many different societies in various ways. 1 The dictionary defines racism as the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races. This definition of racism makes it clear that it is a perceived point of view that implies prejudice towards people or a person based solely on their race. Racism has been an issue in many societies for many years and still is an issue in modern society. 2 Recently in the U.S. many cases of racism towards African Americans have been shown in the media. However racism is not just a U.S. culture based issue but also a cross-cultural issue
Nagel, Joane. “Constructing Ethnicity: Creating and Recreating Ethnic Identity and Culture”. New York University Press. Washington Square, New York 1998.
Takaki, Ronald. A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1993. Print.
Around 12,000 B.C., human beings in Asia moved north in search wooly mammoths and made their way across the Bering Straight to Alaska. Over the next several hundred years, they made their way to the Great Plains where they hunted huge mammals to the point of extinction. During the Archaic Period (9000 B.C. 1000 B.C.), bands of hunters moved constantly from one area to another in constant search of a suitable food supply. By 1000 B.C. the first sedentary communities were developed near rich fishing areas along the coasts and large rivers. Sedentary people created complex mound communities along the Mississippi River and in the Ohio Valley. When improvements in corn reached the land north of the Mexican desert, there was a marked boom in sedentary city development. Corn cultivation influenced peoples' religions and improved their health, helping to spawn a population growth after 800 A.D. These urban centers declined in the 13th and 14th centuries because of warfare, soil exhaustion and the disruption of inter-regional trade. In Europe, forces of social change were creating unrest; unrest which would prompt hundreds of people to explore the Atlantic Ocean and reshape the relationship between peoples of the world.
Racism has taken on many forms in America over the past several hundred years. The most substantial or well known is the plight of the African American slaves and the injustices they suffered. Today, a new form of racism is developing; one that has always been around but has now entered the forefront of most Americans minds. This new racism is against members of the Middle Eastern culture and religion. The actions of September 11th did not create a new problem, they just shed light on a problem that we have had for some time. Racism is everywhere in one form or another. To understand it, I think it is necessary to look at the history, causes, and ways to resolve it.
Have you ever been picked on or made fun of because your nationality is different from someone else’s or the color of your skin? If so, then the person who did it was probably a racist person. Racism still exists within all cultures. Some people won’t admit they’re a racist, but their actions and words prove otherwise. Most people won’t directly discriminate other races, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen everyday.
Support is defined as a means to endure bravely or quietly (Merriam-Webster). In Losing Isaiah, Khaila, a recovered crack addict, serves some time incarcerated. She then goes through a rehabilitation program, during which her main source of support was her case worker and counselor. In the process of fully recovering from crack she discovers that her baby, Isaiah, is still alive. With the help of her counselor and a lawyer she is able to endure a long and pressing trial to gain a second chance to be a better mother to Isaiah (Losing Isaiah). In the United States, stories like Khaila�s are constantly replayed. These cases occur more frequently in urban areas, where the majority of women on crack who give birth to crack babies are minority women, usually Hispanic or African American (Thomas). Crack is common in crowded municipalities because it is one of the cheapest and most available drugs in the streets of most inner city communities in America (Thomas). Khaila�s drug habit played directly into the stereotypes of her demographic. In the movie, her situation depicts how the lack of a strong support system leads recovered/recovering crack mothers to resort in little to chances of resuming a normal life when they begin to reshape their lives.
First of all what is racism? There is no need to discuss neither talk more about this topic with zero knowledge about racism. So basically the definition of racism is: American Heritage College Dictionary, racism has two meanings. Firstly, racism is, “The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.” For example when the history of slavery started and was practiced throughout America in the 17th and 18th centuries. Secondly, racism is, “Discrimination or prejudice based on race.” This happens everywhere.
Racism is one of the world’s major issues today. Many people are not aware of how much racism still exists in our schools workforces, and anywhere else where social lives are occurring. It is obvious that racism is bad as it was many decades ago but it sure has not gone away. Racism very much exists and it is about time that people need to start thinking about the instigations and solutions to this matter. Many people believe that it depends on if a person was brought into the world as a racist or not but that is not the case at all. In fact, an individual cannot be born a racist but only learn to become one as they grow from child to adulthood. Basic causes, mainstream, institutions, government, anti racism groups, and even some hidden events in Canada’s past are a few of the possible instigations and solutions to racism.