How I Found America: Collected Stories

by Anzia Yezierska

An indispensable volume of immigrant literature. Individually, each of these 27 stories is authentic and immediate, as memorable as family history passed from one generation to the next; taken together, they comprise a vivid, enduring portrait of the struggles of immigrant Jews―particularly women―on New York's Lower East Side.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Read For School, Historical, New York, Literature, Historical Fiction

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

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

[Diego Arias · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️
"The ideal of going to college was like the birth of a new religion in my soul".

Read it for my English Literature class. It was interesting to know different perspectives on immigrant history in USA and how difficult is to be a foreigner in a land that already see you as less than them. Also this had a rough critic to the capitalist system and the sexism and inequality in a society that punish the differences and condemns free thinking.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

How I Found America is a collection of stories about Russian Jewish immigrants at the turn of the 20th Century. The idea of the impoverished Russian Jew living in a crowded tenement on the lower east side is a figure that permeates most immigrant literature of the time, and unfortunately this generalization is continued by Yezierska. I can't blame the author, who is an immigrant herself and has probably witnessed the scenes she writes about. However, I am a bit annoyed at the number of books I have read on this topic that all seem to be about the same thing.

The stories are also all similar, and revolve around very emotional and deep thinking Russian Jewish immigrants who are all oppressed by poverty and disheartened with America. Some are women, some men, some young, but all feel that their hopes and dreams have been crushed by the cruel reality of the sweat shops and tenements. However, by the end, all of them experience some event, whether meeting an inspirational stranger, or being kicked out of their apartments, that makes them think and realize that if they work hard and never lose their motivations they can "fly" free. The symbol of the bird flying out of its cage is used in virtually every story. The fact that each character is generally the same person is a bit annoying. I also got quite attached to the first girl. Whatever happened to her, anyway?

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

"America and I" by: Anzia Yezierska is an autobiography. The story is biased on when Yezierska's voyage to America and had a dream of becoming wealthy and successful. I really enjoyed this story, because of the real life vibe. You could picture all of the events as she was telling the story.

Yezierska was my favorite character because her story was powerful. I felt a connection with her and relate to her experiences. Yezierska has believed in the positive and good however reality back fires and it kind of breaks her. Her dreams of America where broken and that broke her spirit.

This story is an accurate description of how America truly is. I wouldn’t change anything about this story because it does show how America really is to "non-Americans". They think that everything is "perfect" but in reality in America you truly don’t have anyone, you really only have yourself.

I really enjoyed this book, I would  recommend this book for everyone to read. This story would be for an older audience that knows about bills and has a job or has ever had trouble with money, a lot of Americans could really relate to this story.

[Jing · Rating 4 out of 5]

A immigrant came to America because she believe there was hope to rise up. However, the person was met with struggles everywhere, house evictions, revolt of children, hunger, marriage and even struggling to maintain her own identity. She found writing as a way to express this and free her mind from such struggles.

This book was very sad. However, we were able to learn from a Jewish immigrant's experience of how one rise up to become a writer. In it, there are continuous amount of struggles, which particular people in America have to cope with. I guess this book was to tell us that even though America is a rich fat land to reap out of, there is still struggle and will continue to occur as long as we live. We live to struggle for the better. Unlike other countries, there is no struggle, if you ran out of food, it is possible you would die.

[Rachel D · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a series of short stories about Jewish immigrant life in New York in the 20th century and the crushing alienation that comes from the clash of Russian and American cultures. Yezierska herself was an immigrant, from Russian Poland, and struggled with alienation from herself and society her entire life; many of the stories mirror her struggle. She does a fine job of incorporating descriptive narration and dialect into her stories of the Lower East Side, making the reader feel she is right there with the characters. The characters themselves are well-developed. We hear every "oy vey" and feel we are one of the "tired immigrants yearning to breathe free". Some of the stories are a bit too mawkish, though.

[Ester · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was as realistic as it was heartbreaking. What is the American Dream anyway?

[Teodora · Rating 3 out of 5]

How I Found America is a collection of short stories containing two of the authoress’s short stories collections plus the uncollected stories. I must admit it was hard for me to finish the book because after a while I found the stories quite repetitive, all with same idea but with different characters. What this book did manage to do is to clearly illustrate the life of Russian immigrants in America. We see protagonist, mostly women, having this irresistible hunger for knowledge, for success, for beauty, for love and we see the society doing everything to put them down. But they won’t accept no for an answer no matter how many times life crushes them down. We see this dream land being nothing more than a dump yard described in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. We see people from the margins of society on their way to reach their vision of America, their dreams being crushed over and over again. I found the uncollected stories, which were mostly anecdotes from the authoress’s own life the most moving ones.

[Brian Finch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trump needs to read this -- you know, if he actually read books.

[Tara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed it very much. There are phrases and ideas that will stick with me, like the idea of making of yourself a person. The dialect writing is well done, the stories are lively and touching. It was difficult to read it in this time when immigration is such a bleak struggle again.