Two-Countries: U.S. Daughters and Sons of Immigrant Parents

by Tina Schumann (Editor), John Guzlowski (Contributor), Tara Lynn Masih (Contributor)

The newest addition to Red Hen's Anthology Series, Two-Countries: U.S. Daughters and Sons of Immigrant Parents is an anthology of flash memoir, personal essays and poetry edited by the adult child of an immigrant born and raised in the US. The collection contains contributions from sixty-five writers who were either born and/or raised in the US by one or more immigrant parent. Their work describes the many contradictions, discoveries and life lessons one experiences when one is neither seen as fully American nor fully foreign. Contributors include Richard Blanco, Tina Chang, Joseph Lagaspi, Li-Young Lee, Timothy Liu, Naomi Shihab Nye, Oliver de la Paz, Ira Sukrungruang, Ocean Vuong and many other talented writers from throughout the US.

Genres: Poetry, Memoir, Essays

351 pages, Paperback

Published October 17, 2017

About the author

www.tinaschumann.com

Reviews

[Jenna]

Three poems from my first poetry collection, Six Rivers , were reprinted in this timely Red Hen Press anthology, together with work by Li-Young Lee, Ocean Vuong, Naomi Shihab Nye, Richard Blanco, and others.

There's lots of powerful stuff in here: Oliver de la Paz's poems about fatherhood, Michelle Penaloza's affection-infused poems about her parents and her Lola, Melita Schaum's beautiful and tightly crafted prose vignettes, Frank Izaguirre's portrayal of how pure familial love can be at its best in his flash memoir "The Guanabana Tree" (the tree that in Vietnamese is called mãng cầu). I also admired the obliquity of Izaguirre's invocation of identity in the touchingly simple flash memoir "Growth in the Garden," about a young Cuban American boy who comes to identify with a garden lizard, a knight anole, having heard that knight anoles "came from Cuba, too." And on a personal note, having recently reviewed Kay Redfield Jamison's new Robert Lowell biography for Literary Matters, I found Prageeta Sharma's summation of Lowell's privilege, in contrast to her own family's lack of privilege, especially striking:

Having been born and raised outside of Boston,
without the opportunities say someone like Robert Lowell had.

I knew I was not of that ilk nor was my father—we now realize.

Boston was indeed for the rich—with its stodgy colonial identity,
with its ridiculous Brahmans—
its oddly cultureless stance
even with Harvard as its mirror.
(Even with Cal as front & center literati.)

I kept a running list of the anthology's recurring themes as I was reading, for self-edification and possible future pedagogical purposes (feel free to borrow this list if you are an educator):

1. finding a balance between two or more cultures (e.g., Bunkong Tuon's "Living in the Hyphen," Naomi Shihab Nye's "Half-and-Half," Itoro Udofia's "Daughter of the Diaspora," Kristy Webster's "Father Ice, Mother Fire")
2. being cast in the role of mediator between two or more cultures (Mohja Kahf's "My Grandmother Washes Her Feet in the Sink of the Bathroom at Sears")
3. loss of, and nostalgia for, homeland (Lauren Camp's "Pauses," Elisa Albo's "Cartography" and "Exile")
4. family remains/heirlooms/artifacts (Tuon's "Photograph of My Mother," Timothy Liu's "The Remains")
5. war/famine/sickness/death/bereavement/trauma (innumerable examples)
6. self-consciousness about oneself or one's family looking/sounding/acting different (Tuon's "Early Saturday Morning in Malden, MA (1986)," Komal Patel Mathew's "An American," Jeanie Chung's "Cuts and Folds," Tara L. Masih's "Excerpts From 'Vignettes From a Certain Source,'" David Licata's "The Wolf Is in the Kitchen")
7. toughness/resilience of immigrants (Ira Sukrungruang's "Chop Suey," Danusha Goska's "Silence," Elisabeth von Uhl's "Child Speaks of German-Immigrant Grandmother," many others)
8. mixed feelings revisiting one's former homeland/ancestral land (Alexandrine Vo's "Revisiting," Ocean Vuong's "Returning" and "Sai Gon Again," Shin Yu Pai's "A Midwinter's Day," Paul E. Nelson's "Guanabo Beach, 2005")
9. complicated relationships with parents (Oliver de la Paz's "Meditation With Smoke and Flowers," innumerable others)
10. complicated relationships with grandparents (Michelle Penaloza's "Thread Rite," Jane Lin's "Ancestry" and "House Rules," Denise Valenti's "Spanish," von Uhl's "Child Speaks of German-Immigrant Grandmother")
11. connecting to heritage through food/cooking (Alan King's "The Hostess," "The Listener," and "Brink," Udofia's "Daughter of the Diaspora," Richard Blanco's "America")
12. connecting to heritage through gardens/gardening (Melody S. Gee's "Where We Are Gathered," Li-Young Lee's "Arise, Go Down," Ana Garza G'z's "Pa Grafts Trees," Frank Izaguirre's "Growth in the Garden" and "The Guanabana Tree")
13. connecting to heritage through media/movies (Joey Nicoletti's "Sylvester Stallone Overdrive")
14. connecting to heritage through music (Vuong's "Sai Gon Again," Lee's "I Ask My Mother to Sing," Udofia's "Daughter of the Diaspora"); also, the converse: breaking old bonds and/or forming new bonds through music (Darrel Alejandro Holnes's "Tu," William Archila's "The Day John Lennon Died")
15. poverty and work (Joseph O. Legaspi's "Alaska," "My Father in the Night," and "The Red Sweater," Penaloza's "My Father, on the Line" and "Thread Rite," King's "The Hostess," Blanco's "Looking for the Gulf Motel," Goska's "Silence")
16. racism (Sukrungruang's "Chop Suey," Prageeta Sharma's "A Situation for Mrs. Biswas," Mathew's "Covering Candles and Other Follies," King's "Brink," Melissa Castillo-Garsow's "Poem to the White Man Who Asks Me...")
17. dangerous journeys/run-ins with immigration law (Tina Chang's "The Shifting Kingdom," Castillo-Garsow's "Tu" and "Cuando sueno con Arizona")
18. feeling alienated/invisible/illegible/lost (Nye's "Two Countries," Sharma's "A Situation for Mrs. Biswas," Michael Schmeltzer's "An Accent Like Grief")
19. palpating the limits of one's family religion (Kazim Ali's "Home," Mathew's "An American" and "Covering Candles and Other Follies," Vickie Fernandez's "Cuban Medicine")
20. knowing, or not knowing, a second language (Castillo-Garsow's "Tu" and "Cuando sueno con Arizona," Gabriella Burman's "Estela," Izaguirre's "The Guanabana Tree," Valenti's "Spanish," Webster's "Father Ice, Mother Fire," Goska's "Silence")
21. emotional significance of "ethnic" names (Ali's "Home," Nye's "Blood")
22. accents ("Schmeltzer's "An Accent Like Grief," Burman's "Estela," Nelson's "Guanabo Beach, 2005," Licata's "The Wolf Is in the Kitchen")
23. cultural conformity vs. individualism (Viji K. Chary's "Laying a Foundation," Aida Zilelian's "The Art of Trying")
24. unexpected commonalities among disparate cultures (Angie Chuang's "Six Syllables")
25. fellow-feeling with others from the same background (Sahar Mustafah's "The Arabians")
26. intersections of ethnic identity and LGBTQ identity (Ali's "Home," SJ Sindu's "Test Group 4: Womanhood and Other Failures")
27. ghosts of memory/hereditary influences (Jed Myers's "The Dead's Tremors")
28. assimilation/"Americanization" (Myers's "Same Fires")


Note that many pieces interweave multiple themes: for example, the poignant revelation near the end of Pai's "A Midwinter's Day" that the speaker recently had a miscarriage leads readers to realize that a still-deeper theme undergirding the piece is the precariousness of all human life, a truth that is especially difficult for many first- and second-generation Americans to forget, while the loss of a patient to suicide in Mathew's "Covering Candles and Other Follies" deepens that piece's exploration of the theme that silences can sometimes be as kind as they are unkind.

[Tara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fair warning I am in this collection so am biased. But having put together my own anthologies, I can say that Tina Schumann did a wonderful job of conceiving and executing this unique collection that blends poetry, longer personal essays, and flash memoir. Each selection is headed by a heritage statement and bio and picture of the author, much like The Chalk Circle: Intercultural Prizewinning Essays. For me, personal poetry standouts were Elisa Albo's "Cartography," Alan King's poetry, and Richard Blanco's eloquent "Amerika." The longer personal essays allow us to dive a bit deeper into the issue of being the progeny of Immigrants, and John Guzlowski's essay "Growing Up Polack" strikes at the heart of every child growing up with a parent who is viewed as an Other in the community, and Melita Schaum's quietly profound essay, "Exchanges," uses the telephone to communicate ethnicity and loneliness and exile. Her final line resonates through all the stories in Two-Countries .

[Sherry · Rating 5 out of 5]

The brilliance, honesty, and warm-heartedness of this anthology is enlightening: a gathering of fine and accomplished writers from all over the country opening windows into their poignant, triumphant, maddening, and sometimes shocking family life experiences.

It's a book to keep around, to read straight through, to dip into, to search, to be amazed by, and to expand your heart with. Congratulations to the editor who conceived it and brought it to realization!

U.S. Daughters & Sons Of Immigrant Parents: US!!