Immigrant Reality Exposed in Bread Givers For thousands of years people have left their home country in search of a land of milk and honey. Immigrants today still equate the country they are immigrating to with the Promised Land or the land of milk and honey. While many times this Promised Land dream comes true, other times the reality is much different than the dream. Immigration is not always a perfect journey. There are many reasons why families immigrate and there are perception differences about immigration and the New World that create difficulties and often separate generations in the immigrating family. Anzia Yezierska creates an immigration story based on a Jewish family that is less than ideal. Yezierska’s text is a powerful example of the turmoil that is created in the family as a result of the conflict between the Old World and the New World. The Smolinsky family in Bread Givers immigrates to the United States due to political strife. They actually leave Russia as an indirect result of the father’s refusal to serve in the army. His refusal is based on his religious beliefs. The mother, Shenah Smolinsky, explained the reason to Sara, the narrator, by saying, "The tsar of Russia [ …] wanted to tear your father away from his learning and make him a common soldier" (33). The family buys the father out of the army. Then due to the sudden death of Mrs. Smolinsky’s father, Mr. Smolinsky takes over his father-in-law’s business. Mr.Smolinsky’s business knowledge is hindered by his dedication to his religion and the business is forced to close. Thus, Mr. Smolinsky took to heart the American Dream, "And when everything was gone from us, then our only hope was to come to America, where Father thought things cost n... ... middle of paper ... ...ll. 1998. He, Qiang Shan. "Chinese-American Literature." New Immigrant Literatures in the United States: A Sourcebook to Our Multicultural Literary Heritage. Ed. Alpana Sharma Knippling. WEstport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1996. 44-65. Krupnick, Mark.. "Jewish-American Literature." New Immigrant Literatures in the United States: A Sourcebook to Our Multicultural Literary Heritage. Ed. Alpana Sharma Knippling. WEstport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1996. 295-308. Pilcer, Sonia. "2G." Visions of America Personal Narratives from the Promised Land. Ed. Wesley Brown and Amy Ling. 4th ed. New York: Peresea Books, 1993. 201-206. Yezierska, Anzia. Bread Givers. New York: Persea Books, 1999. ---. "Soap and Water." Imagining America Stories from the Promised Land. Ed. Wesley Brown and Amy Ling. 8th ed. New York: Peresea Books, 1991. 105-110.
The novel Bread Givers by Anzia Yezierska examines the roles and experiences of Jewish immigrants in America roughly after the years of WWI in New York City. The novel follows the journey of Sara, a young Jewish immigrant, and her family who comes to the country from Poland with different beliefs than those in the Smolinsky household and by much of the Jewish community that lived within the housing neighborhoods in the early 1900s. Through Sara’s passion for education, desire for freedom and appreciation for her culture, she embodies a personal meaning of it means to be an “American”.
In the novel The Bread Givers, there was a Jewish family, the Smolinsky family, that had immigrated from Russia to America. The family consisted of four daughters, a father, and a mother. The family lived in a poverty-stricken ghetto. The youngest of the daughters was Sara Smolinsky, nicknamed ?Iron Head? for her stubbornness. She was the only daughter that was brave enough to leave home and go out on her own and pursue something she wanted without the permission of her father. The Smolinsky family was very poor, they were to the point of which they could not afford to throw away potato peelings, and to the point of which they had to dig through other people?s thrown out ash in order to gather the coal they needed. They could not afford to buy themselves new clothes or new furniture.
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