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Women's movement in the early 20th century
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Anzia Yezierska’s Bread Givers is a historical fiction novel about the lives of a Jewish family of immigrants, the Smolinsky’s, living in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the 1920’s. The Smolinsky’s are a destitute family from Poland, that struggles to make ends meet, and to maintain their cultural identity after immigrating to the United States. The novel is told through the perspective of the family’s youngest daughter, Sara Smolinsky. Anzia Yezierska, an immigrant herself, is able to use her experiences in life to craft a fictional work that accurately depicts life in a struggling, immigrant family during the early 20th century. Sara grows up a first-generation Jewish American, caught between the new, American culture of her new …show more content…
He states, “It says in the Torah: What’s a woman without a man? Less than nothing—a blotted out existence. No life on earth and no hope in heaven.” When Sara’s sisters bring men home Reb refuses to accept their choices. Heartbroken, the girls are arranged with husbands chosen by their father. Sara’s anger towards her father stems largely from the way he treats her sisters and handles their marriages. She believes that women should be able to have the choice as to who they marry. Furthermore, Sara adheres to American beliefs regarding a woman’s freedom of will and choice in her life; “I’m going to live my own life. Nobody can stop me. I’m not from the old country. I’m an American!”, she says in an act of defiance towards her father and his conservative way of thinking. For Sara, America is a place where she and her family shouldn’t be restricted by the rigid structure of life in her old home. Prior to their journey to the U.S., Reb paints a picture of America in his family’s minds of a paradise: “Don't you know it's always summer in America? And in the new golden country, where milk and honey flows free in the streets, you'll have new golden dishes to cook in…” Sara can not realize this paradise without breaking away from her father’s grasp. Women in the United States during this time were not able to climb the social ladder like men were. Women were encouraged to remain in the …show more content…
Specifically, Yezierska tells about life as an immigrant woman. The traditional ways of the Solimsky’s homeland impede the women of the family from living out their new, American lives as they desire. Around this same time, the women’s suffrage movement was gaining steam, and in 1920 women obtained the right to vote. It would be interesting to see what a man like Mr. Solimsky thought about women winning that right in America, through a primary source. Bread Givers is a valid primary source, even as a work of fiction. Yezierska informs readers about life for early 1900’s immigrants through writings based on her life. She uses religion throughout the novel to show the divide between those immigrants trying to hold onto their traditions and those trying to assimilate. Religion is used by Mr. Smolinsky to keep control over the women in his family. This rift causes tension within their family and leads Sara to run away in order to pursue her “American Dream”, so to speak. Sara is questioned by others regarding her independence, and why she is not focused on finding a husband. This questioning is due to the domesticity of women, traditional thought that saw tending to the house as the job of a woman. Around this time, many immigrant women that lived in the
The history of white bread is more important than we think. I will be reviewing the book White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Bought Loaf written by Aaron Bobrow-Strain. This book is about how white bread historical impacted the food production during the industrial revolution. Bobrow- Strain main argument is that the industrial revolution has changed the way food is produced and consumed. The main focus of the was on the production of white bread and how it has changed over time. Also, he look at the changes in the society and how that changed the production of white bread. He starts of being explaining bread was made in the homes, then bakeries, then
According to Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life, between 1880 and about World War I, the vast majority of Eastern European Jews and Southern Italians came to the United States populating neighborhoods in New York and the Lower East Side is the best example. One thing, which was common to the immigrant experience is that, all immigrants come to the United States as the “land of opportunity”. They come to America with different types of expectations that are conditioned by their origins and families. But every immigrant comes to America wanting to make himself/herself into a person, to be an individual and to become somebody. In this case, the author showed in Bread Givers, Sarah’s desire to make herself into something and bring something unique to America, which only she can bring. It is an effort to understand the immigrants, particularly Jewish immigrants, from a woman’s point of view. The book shows that it was a challenge for Jewish immigrant children, particularly females, on the account of the intensity of their family’s connections and obligations that was so critical for the immigrant communities. This was true for the immigrants who came to settle in the neighborhoods like the one Sarah and her family settled in.
Out of This Furnace tells a impressive story of a multigenerational family of Slovakian immigrants who comes to the United States in search of a better life in the New World. The patriarch of the Slovak family was Djuro Kracha, who arrived in the New World in the mid-1880s from the "old country." The story tells of his voyage, his work on the railroad to earn enough money to afford the walk to the steel mills of Pennsylvania, his rejection by the larger mainstream community as a "hunkey," and the lives of his daughter and grandson. As the members of this family become more generally acculturated and even Americanized, they come to resent the cruel treatment and the discrimination they suffer.
Anzia Yezierska’s 1925 novel Bread Givers ends with Sara Smolinsky’s realization that her father’s tyrannical behavior is the product of generations of tradition from which he is unable to escape. Despite her desire to embrace the New World she has just won her place in, she attempts to reconcile with her father and her Jewish heritage. The novel is about the tension inherent in trying to fit Old and New worlds together: Reb tries to make his Old World fit into the new, while Sara tries to make her New World fit into the Old. Sara does not want to end up bitter and miserable like her sisters, but she does not want to throw her family away all together. Her struggle is one of trying to convince her patriarchal family to accept her as an independent woman, while assimilating into America without not losing too much of her past.
She was not a master of style, plot development or characterization, but the intensity of feeling and aspiration are evident in her narratives that overrides her imperfections. Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street, written in 1984, and Anzia Yezierska’s Bread Givers, published in 1925, are both aimed at adolescent and adult audiences that deal with deeply disturbing themes about serious social conditions and their effects on children as adults. Both books are told in the first person; both narrators are young girls living in destitute neighborhoods; and both young girls witness the harsh realities of life for those who are poor, abused, and hopeless. Although the narrators face these overwhelming obstacles, they manage to survive their tough environments with their wits and strength remaining intact. Esperanza, a Chicano with three sisters and one brother, has had a dream of having her own things since she was ten years old.
“It suddenly occurred to me that my grandmother had walked around here and gazed upon this water many times, and the loneliness and agony that Hudis Shilsky felt as a Jew in the lonely southern town-- far from her mother and sisters in New York, unable to speak English, a disabled Polish immigrant whose husband had no love for her and whose dreams of seeing her children grow up in America vanished as her life drained out of her at the age of forty-six--- suddenly rose up in my blood and washed over me in waves.”
This book talks about the immigrants in the early 1900’s. The book describes how they live their daily lives in New York City. It helped me a lot on Riis photographs and his writings on to better understand the book and the harsh reality this people lived. This comes to show us that life is not that easy and it will cost us work to succeed.
The book Out of this Furnace written by Thomas Bell is about a Slovak family immigration to America. Immigrating to America for the Slovak family brought trials and problems. The work that was available for the George, Mike and Johnny is hard and requires long hours of work, for very little pay. The family came hoping to get a better life. But in the end the American dream became very hard for them to reach. Jobs were hard to find and working in the mill required movement from place to place, finding a home for the family was difficult and making sure that family was happy and taken care wasn’t easy. Reaching the American dream was difficult for the immigrants, especially for the Slovak family.
The busy season for the shop she was working on came and the owner of the shop kept demanding for what we call overtime. She got fired after she said, “I only want to go home. I only want the evening to myself!.” Yezierska was regretful and bitter about what happened because she ended up in cold and hunger. After a while she became a trained worker and acquired a better shelter. An English class for foreigners began in the factory she was working for. She went to the teacher for advice in how to find what she wanted to do. The teacher advised her to join the Women’s Association, where a group of American women helps people find themselves. One of the women in the social club hit her with the reality that “America is no Utopia.” Yezierska felt so hopeless. She wondered what made Americans so far apart from her, so she began to read the American history. She learned the difference between her and the Pilgrims. When she found herself on the lonely, untrodden path, she lost heart and finally said that there’s no America. She was disappointed and depressed in the
Anzia Yezierska's Bread Givers. Anzia Yezierska's Bread Givers attacks several social norms of her. traditional Polish homeland and the American life her protagonist has come to know. Clearly autobiographical, Bread Givers boldly questions why certain. Social and religious traditions continue throughout the centuries without the slightest consideration of an individual's interests or desires.
The constant hum of street vendors yelling, car horns blaring, and poor people complaining acts as the soundtrack to the family drama within the small apartment on Hector Street. There was never a quiet moment, and between the four sisters, an overworked mother, and an entitled father, the place was bustling and busy enough to burst. But to a young Sara Smolinsky, this chaotic ensemble was home. In the novel Bread Givers, immigrant author Anzia Yezierska writes about the realization of the American Dream for the ambitious and determined Sara Smolinsky, but the price of success is high. Sara starts her journey in the impoverished ghetto of Hester Street, and she escapes its dirtiness and shame, going on to achieve the American Dream. The apartment
Mary went from not even attending school in Russia, to star pupil in America, illustrating the promise that America had to offer immigrants. American afforded Mary with opportunities that were impossible in her home country of Russia. Even though Frieda also lived in America, her circumstances represent the realities of the Old World. For instance, Frieda’s only way of learning about American history was through Mary, as she was not afforded time to read while working. By not attending school, Frieda did not only became stuck in the Old World mentality in terms of education but also in terms of marriage. Her father “had put Frieda to work out of necessity. The necessity was hardly lifted when she had an offer of marriage, but my father would not stand in the way of what he considered her welfare” (Antin, 218). Frieda was not given the opportunity to marry for love, as was the American way, but was married out of necessity for her welfare, reminiscent of the Old World mentality. Public education provided Mary with the opportunity to marry not because she had to in order to survive, but because she wanted to. The stark contrast between the lives of Frieda, representing life in the
The term “Sandwich Generation” is what some are using to describe those people who, for one reason or another, are ‘sandwiched’ between the need to provide care not only for their own children but also for at least one aging parent. There has been much debate on what classifies someone as being included in such group, and little emphasis on the hardships that accompany the transition between child and caregiver. This paper will discuss the classification that make up the “sandwich generation’ and some of the financial and emotional stress that comes with this new responsibility.
America is a capitalist society. It should come to a surprise when we live like this daily. We work for profit. We’ll buy either for pleasure or to sell later for profit. It should come to no surprise that our food is made the same way because we are what we eat. We are capitalist that eat a capitalist meal. So we must question our politics. Is our government system to blame for accepting and encouraging monopolies?
Food insecurity and poor nutrition is an alarmingly large problem for low income families, especially in developing countries. Many strategies exist to fight this problem, although not many of these address all the factors contributing to it along with all the possible solutions to solve it. In many cases, multiple strategies must correlate and work together so that all the determinants of this issue are addressed and can fight food insecurity from different angles. This essay will discuss the significance of the problem, a range of possible strategies to solve the problem, and go into detail on a select few that will correlate and work together to solve different factors of food insecurity and poor nutrition.