Hungry Hearts

by Anzia Yezierska, Blanche H. Gelfant (Introduction)

In stories that draw heavily on her own life, Anzia Yezierska portrays the immigrant's struggle to become a "real" American, in such stories as "Yekl," "Hunger," "The Fat of the Land," and "How I Found America." Set mostly in New York's Lower East Side, the stories brilliantly evoke the oppressive atmosphere of crowded streets and shabby tenements and lay bare the despair of families trapped in unspeakable poverty, working at demeaning jobs, and coping with the barely hidden prejudices of their new land.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Jewish, Classics, Historical Fiction, Literature, American

180 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1920

About the author

Anzia Yezierska was a Jewish-American novelist born in Mały Płock, Poland, which was then part of the Russian Empire. She emigrated as a child with her parents to the United States and lived in the immigrant neighborhood of the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

Reviews

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anita Yezierska (1882-1970) was born in Poland and came to the Lower East Side of New York with her family in
1890 when she was nine years old. By the 1920’s she had risen out of poverty and became a successful writer of stories, novels, all autobiographical and an autobiography.
Her stories truly inspired that we look -evaluate and re-evaluate our own lives today.
“Hungry Hearts” is a collection of nine short stories 164 pages long (free kindle).

I could feel the author through her characters—struggling — fighting for her dream —
I experienced her longing, indignation, despair, her restlessness, desperation—her fight for herself.
She had a charming personality…. a little precocious — less naïve — than others thought of her…..

I loved her expression—which showed through her prose.
“My heart chokes in me like in a prison! I’m dying for a little love and I got nobody—nobody!”
So dramatic she was at a young age….but there was truth.

Or….

“It was all a miracle—his coming, this young professor from one of the big colleges. He had rented a room in the very house where she was janitress so as to be near the people he was writing about. But more wonderful than all was the way he stopped to talk to her, to question her about herself, as though she were an equal. What warm friendliness had prompted him to take her out of her dark basement to the library were there were books to read!”

Anita’s stories were candid and passionate—she wanted to come to America to go to school - to learn - to think - to make something beautiful from her life. (not be stuck in a factory or cleaning forever).

“Just as there ain’t no bottom to being poor, there ain’t no bottom to being lonely. Before, everything I’ve done was alone, by myself. My heart hurt with hunger for people. But here, in the factory, I feel I am with everybody together. Just the sight of people lifts me on wings in the air”.

The longing for a friend - a great friend — was felt —
“I felt sometimes that I was burning out my heart for a shadow, an echo, a wild dream. But I couldn’t help it. Nothing was real to me but my hope of finding a friend”.

The odor of herring and garlic—the ravenous munching of food—laughter and loud vulgar jokes…
There were family stories of her parents - and stories of obsessively wanting love.
Like hunger for bread, (or potato lotkes) was her hunger for love.

Questions explored >
were immigrants happy with their slavery?
Or…
why wasn’t there more rebellion against the galling grind?

“What do I got from living if I can’t have a little beautifulness in my life? I don’t allow for myself the ten cents to go to a movie picture that I’m crazy to see. I never yet treated myself to an ice-cream soda even for a holiday. Shining up the house for Aby is my only pleasure”.

What do any of us have without ‘allowing’ ourselves pleasure?

[Kansas · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2025...

“En Rusia podías tener la esperanza de huir de tus problemas yendo a América. ¿A dónde irás ahora que ya vives en Estados Unidos?"


Corazones hambrientos es una colección de relatos que fue publicada en 1920 justo a finales del nuevo éxodo que había arrastrado a dos y medio millones de judíos desde la Europa del Este hasta América; este primer asentamiento de recién llegados se situó en una zona concreta de la ciudad de Nueva York, a la que se denominó Lower East Side. Una zona que se convirtió en el hogar de miles de familias judías desplazadas y en un ghetto multicultural, y sobre todo fue un lugar en el que la identidad judía intentaba reasignarse tras las persecuciones y pogromos. Anzia Yezierska fue una escritora judía inmigrante que también llegó a Estados Unidos desde Polonia. Antes de ser escritora fue costurera, lavandera y sirvienta, y una vez que nos sumergimos en sus relatos, y si hemos investigado algo sobre su vida, queda claro que lo que está narrando es su propia experiencia. Desde el primer momento además somos conscientes de que Yerzieska está cuestionando el sueño americano, ya que la esperanza de una vida mejor muy pocas veces se veía recompensada una vez llegados a América, debido sobre todo a las dificultades y al hacinamiento de estos judíos en el Lower East Side mientras ocupaban puestos en talleres de explotación y en trabajos en los que apenas eran considerados como seres humanos. "¿Dónde están aquí los campos verdes y los espacios abiertos? ¿Dónde está el País Dorado de mis sueños?" Y esto se lo preguntará una y otra vez Yezierska a través de sus personajes… ¿qué esperanza les quedaba una vez llegados a una América en la que ni una mirada de dignidad se merecían?


"Dentro de la ruina de mi vida frustrada, la inmigrante visionaria que no ha podido vivir, tenía hambre y sed de pertenecer a este país. Había llegado como refugiada de los pogromos rusos, soñando con América. No hallé a los Estados Unidos en sus talleres de explotación, y mucho menos en sus escuelas y universidades. Pero las razas perseguidas de todo el mundo durante siglos se habían nutrido con la esperanza de América."


Me han sorprendido muy gratamente estos relatos, porque pocas veces se me había presentado la perspectiva de esta inmigración solo desde el punto de vista femenino, y realmente el retrato que nos presenta Yezierska es muy nítido porque es muy poco habitual en la literatura de la época que todos y cada uno de los relatos venga de la perspectiva femenina: aquí las mujeres no son personajes secundarios sino las que vivirán en primera persona la supervivencia y las consecuencias de la inmigración. No solo procedían de la pobreza y de una sociedad megapatriarcal, sino que cuando llegan a América siguen siendo pobres a pesar del duro trabajo y tienen que seguir enfrentándose al estigma de ser mujer, no solo porque las tradiciones sigan firmemente asentadas en su entorno aunque hayan cambiado de país, sino porque en los años 20 no es que se hubiera avanzado demasiado en el reparto de los roles de género ni en América ni en ninguna otra parte del mundo. Cuando Yezierska llega a América, se enfrenta al hecho de que si no quiere trabajar en un taller de explotación o fábrica, solo le queda la opción de ser sirvienta, costurera o cocinera. Los personajes de sus relatos se rebelan ante esto y querrán formarse: retrata a mujeres muy intensas y nada pasivas, la vena autobiográfica está continuamente presente. Pero como ya he comentado en otras crónicas cuyo tema fundamental es el de la emigración o el exilio, cambiar de país no solo supone un cambió geofísico o logístico sino que el conflicto más importante al que tiene que enfrentarse un desplazado le viene dado a la hora de redefinir su identidad


“Ya dentro de las fauces del taller, atronaba el traqueteo y el rugir, el rugir y el traqueteo, la marcha despiadada de las máquinas. Enloquecida y embotada, luchaba para pensar, sentir, recordar: ¿Quién soy yo? ¿Qué soy yo? ¿Por qué estoy aquí?”


La mitología en torno a la tierra de las oportunidades también aparece aquí muy bien reflejada cuando Yezierska presenta a sus personajes todavía en la Europa del Este recibiendo cartas de familiares y conocidos en los que hablan de una tierra dorada en la que mujer es una igual al hombre y en la que no habrá cosacos para controlarlos. Su estilo realista y sencillo presenta todas las perspectivas, desde la hiperexageración de estas cartas en las que se adornaba una vida en una América que no era tan brillante como se contaba, hasta la llegada y el asentamiento en el Lower East Side, en el que tenían que vivir hacinados y apenas tendrían para comer. La emigración como posibilidad de liberación queda en un principio ensombrecida por la durísima realidad conformada no solo por la pobreza sino por la discriminación y la alienación cultural. Este año he leído varias novelas que presentan el tema de la emigración o autoexilio muy bien: “La cocina del infierno” de Fernando Morote, Aixomático de Maria Tumarkin o el Job de Joseph Roth, sin embargo, aquí el punto de vista femenino le da una perspectiva también nueva: Yezierska sugiere que la emigración aunque resulte una experiencia traumática y aunque en muchos momentos no se logra salir de esta pobreza, sin embargo el simple hecho de poder imaginar una vida diferente ya puede suponer una forma de resistencia y de rebelión en sí misma.


“Por entonces me parecía imposible ir a la universidad, que una obrera rusa ignorante intentara escribir poesía en inglés. Pero como tenía dieciséis años, lo imposible era para mí un imán que atraía los sueños sin solución. Además, mi presente era tan estéril, tan estrecho y asfixiante, que el sueño de lo inalcanzable ea el único oxígeno con el que podía sobrevivir mi alma.”


Anzia Yezierska va mucho más allá de la mera lucha económica, sino que ahonda en la experiencia emocional a la hora de que estas mujeres tomen conciencia de sí mismas, o en la identidad perdida que hay que volver a reconstruir desde los cimientos. Muestra a través de sus relatos, algunos de ellos absolutamente frescos con un ritmo prodigioso y llenos de vida, que el esfuerzo y el trabajo por sí solos no son suficientes, así que Yezierska no disfraza la realidad. Sus protagonistas femeninas no serán mujeres pasivas, no se conforman con la vida que les ha tocado, y una vez llegadas a la Tierra Prometida, se enfrentarán a temas de prejuicios de clase, identidad, aislamiento y choque cultural, barreras estructurales, que convierten este mero desplazamiento en un conflicto todavía más traumático, sin embargo el puro deseo de cambio, las hará avanzar sobre todo psicológica y emocionalmente. Yazia Yezierska será una autora muy interesante desde el momento en que amplía la perspectiva y nos da una visión de la inmigración de principios del siglo XX poniendo a mujeres como guías absolutas de estos desplazamientos y posteriores asentamientos. Trauma, choque cultural, conflicto emocional, búsqueda de identidad, enfrentamiento entre tradición y modernidad, y el lugar de la mujer en una época muy compleja, de todo esto hablará Anzia Yerzieska en un estilo sencillo, directo, en el que la critica social estará siempre en el primer plano.


“Soy una inmigrante que lleva muchos años viviendo aquí, pero sigo buscando a los Estados Unidos. El país de mis sueños está más lejos de mí ahora que cuando vivía en el país donde nací. Siempre hay algo que se interpone entre el inmigrante y la gente de aquí. Solo ven su piel exterior, y no su alma. No les importa si tiene alma...”

♫♫♫ Woman - Neneh Cherry ♫♫♫

[Kressel Housman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of short stories by Anzia Yezierska, of whom I was a die-hard fan in my early 20's. I liked her novels better, but all her writing is the same: set amongst Jews of the Lower East Side and featuring a female protagonist desperate to get out. The best and longest story in this collection is "The Fat of the Land," and it won "Best Short Story of 1920" and was made into a film. But the quote I remember best was from another of her stories about heartbreak: "I've breathed the air from the high places where love comes from, and I can't no more come down."

[piperitapitta · Rating 4 out of 5]

...e mezza.

[Jennifer S. Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yezierska wrote these stories in the late 1910s, and this collection was published in 1920. The stories are quite raw in that they are unvarnished, and show what the life of the immigrant was in the early 20th century. It's quite a glimpse at a rough period and the despair and demeaning way of life is eye opening. The stories are uneven, but "The Fat of the Land," about an immigrant mother whose children made good, was so beautifully captured it and rendered so clearly, it gave me new insight into the dilemmas of immigrant parents. That story alone makes the collection worth reading (or just go straight to this story!).

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

There aren't enough stars to rate this work and I don't think this is a work that should be rated. I will however give it the highest number in the currently popular star rating system, FIVE.
Attaching stars to this book though feels like I'm sullying her and her author.

If I were told that I could only have ten books for the rest of my life, this would be one of them.

[Maile · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps it's my own family connection to the stories, but Yezierska's work touches me. I find her stories fascinating, and her protagonists heartbreaking.

[Joanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very readable collection of short stories about immigrants in New York in the early part of the 1900s. The women who populate these stories are all searching for themselves and for their piece of the American dream that they bet on when they left their villages in Poland and Russia to come to New York. The women now find themselves barely scraping by while trying to break free from the poverty and daily grind of children and sweatshops. I found the characters compelling and their voracious desires for bigger, more real lives to be both heart-wrenching and yet surprisingly optimistic.

[Liz Delf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Falling under the genre of "working girl's fiction," these stories are all about Eastern European immigrants in New York in the 1920. As the title implies, all of the characters are hungry for various things: to be an American, to be educated, to be loved, etc. Very readable, I enjoyed it very much. Interesting side note: apparently Yezierska was the first author to use Yiddish expressions in her characters' dialogue. Hm! The things you learn when you read the introduction!

[Illiterate · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tales of immigrant women. The better ones explore domestic settings or interactions with do-gooders.

[Andria Potter · Rating 3 out of 5]

The stories are important, in that they tell of immigration of women, however I did not enjoy the writing style. 3 ⭐

[Elsie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read about 2/3 of the book. The author wrote in the early 20th century about the immigrant experience, probably most Jewish, probably set in New York. The book is made up of a number of stories, each about different characters. Each story is about an immigrant with a "hunger" hence the title. The stories are very sad and affecting. The atmosphere is chaotic, with many of the characters living with a panicky desperation as they worry about finding their place in America and often about also finding love. I had to put it down, finally. It was so depressing. I'm glad I read what I read but there was a sameness to the stories that wore me down.

[Elena Enns · Rating 3 out of 5]

Telling the stories of Eastern European immigrant woman at the turn of the 20th century, Anzia Yezierska’s Hungry Hearts gives the reader insight into the lower east side of New York. Where families were stacked together in small rooms and money for food was scarce.
I found the most impactful of these stories to have been told in “The Fat of the Land”. Hanneh Breineh lived with her six children in a small room with barely any food to feed them. Miserable, she wishes for a life where her children don’t have to fight for food. Years later after her children have become rich and she has a large home to herself, she finds herself still miserable and wishing for the way life had been before: where neighbours looked out for each other and people walking down the street aren’t strangers. In her story, it becomes apparent that while people should chase their dreams, they also shouldn’t become disillusioned by them and take for granted what they already have.

[Rita Kingsbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was an excellent accounting of life on the Lower East Side of New York City. That is where most of the Jewish immigrants settled after arriving to the promised land. It is a WAY more dismal and depressing picture than the one my mother and grandparents talked about. The poverty seems to match what I have heard, but not the desperation. Anzia Yezierska only touches on the sense of community felt by the impoverished. The book definitely portrays the essence of the strong, yearning desire felt by this immigrant population to become educated, learned and cultured, not to mention assimilated! It was a touching book and gave me more insight into the America my ancestors experienced.

[sadie austin · Rating 5 out of 5]

i read basically the whole thing & i was on the verge of tears the entire time

[Saz · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received this book through a Goodreads Giveaway contest!

Contrary to what the stars say, I actually enjoyed this collection of short stories. I first want to begin by saying I gave it 2 stars because these stories have real and factual elements to them, but ultimately they were fiction. Some people enjoy that. I, personally, prefer the raw story - no fictional elements. I understand that that was the entire point of this set of stories. Authors do that a lot, but it's simply not what resonates with me.

I loved this because it was about Jewish people. Perhaps some of the most marginalized, stereotyped peoples' experiences were brought to light through these short stories. They were heartbreaking to say the least. Reading them, I thought about the experiences of my parents and even my own experiences as an immigrant and there was definitely a connection.

I recommend this book to those who enjoy short stories. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand the immigrant experience (which is truly something I think many Americans need to understand). But more importantly, if you're planning on reading this book, appreciate and recognize that this is the JEWISH immigrant experience, which is in my opinion the most important element of this book.

[Kat Wolfe · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5⭐️
A beautiful collection of short stories set in early 20th century New York, told through the eyes of Jewish immigrants as they struggle to find their place in America. These stories were beautiful and sad all at the same time. It made me really think about how my ancestors had suffered so much in order to make sure that their children would be free from religious persecution. These stories truly show the hunger that so many immigrants felt, whether for a loaf of bread or for the American Dream.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 Stars.

In general, short stories aren't my favorite thing to read, but I enjoyed this collection. The author did a great job of capturing the immigrant experience and of writing about different experiences. There were some stories that I enjoyed a lot more than other, but I didn't dislike any of them. I would definitely recommend this collection to people who enjoy short stories.

Received from NetGalley.

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

America Still Calls

Amazing short stories, full of heart and grit. A new learning experience for me about immigrant Jews from Russia & Poland. Heart breaking and lovely all at once.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

overall i thought this book was pretty good...it's a collection of short stories dealing with the lives of Jewish immigrant women. Some of the stories i thought were really good, others not so...

[Jsharp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yezierska always comes through.

[Ryan Mishap · Rating 4 out of 5]

You. Read. Now. Short story collection.

[Ronald · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Hungry Hearts" was Anzia's first book. See my rating for "The Open Cage."

[Abby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Love the messages in this book, and the stories are all really humbling. The writing tended to be melodramatic, though.

[Joe · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is about as saccharine and sentimental as it gets.

[Brenda Schneider · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting stories of the immigrant experience. I received this book as part of the good reads program.

[Gena DeBardelaben · Rating 4 out of 5]

ARC: Netgalley

An intimate glimpse into the lives of Jewish immigrants in the early 1900's. I love books from this time so this was right up my alley.

[Brenda Schneider · Rating 4 out of 5]

A touching collection of stories that capture the immigrant experience. I received this book from the goodreads program.

[Oanh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent. A powerful evocative voice.

[Ian Chapman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Optimistic writing, despite the sometimes sombre themes.