1881-1970
Anzia Yezierska emigrated with her family (consisting of nine other children) from a Russian controlled Poland to New York's Lower East Side. She worked in sweatshops, laundries, and as a maid during the day, while she studied English at night. Eventually she received a scholarship to Columbia College's domestic science teacher training program. She had to invent her high school diploma in order to get into the program.
Yezierska began teaching domestic science in 1905, though she really disliked the subject. Yezierska was married twice. The first time was very briefly to a lawyer named Jacob Gordon. Her second marriage to a teacher named Arnold Levitas was blessed by a daughter, though Levitas and Yezierska separated after several years of marriage.
Anzia Yezierska published her first story, "The Free Vacation House," in 1915. This story, like many of her later works, described an immigrant's frustration with the choices of life in America. This story set the standard for expressing the Yiddish-English dialect which also is seen throughout her works.
In 1919, Yezierska's short story "The Fat of the Land" was chosen as the best of Best of Short Stories of 1919. The next year, a collection of her short stories was published entitled Hungry Hearts. As newspapers began to publish this book, Goldwyn movie studios hired her to write screen plays. Two of her books, Hungry Hearts and Salome of the Tenements, her first novel, were made into movies. Despite her success in Hollywood, she felt that she was losing her creativity, so she moved back to New York, where she lived for several years as a practical recluse.
From 1928-1931, Yezierska held a Zona Gale Fellowship at the University of Wisconsin. After that, she briefly lived in Arlington, VT, but soon moved back to New York. After 18 years of not publishing any works, Yezierska published her fictionalized autobiography entitled Red Ribbon on a White Horse in 1950. Throughout the 1950's, She wrote book reviews for the New York Times, did some lecturing, and continued to write her own stories. In 1966, Yezierska moved to live closer to her daughter, who hired her transcribers so that she could continue writing even though she was going blind. Anzia Yezierska died in a nursing home near Claremont, CA in 1970.
America and I
Of the three authors I have chosen, Yezierska gives perhaps the best account of an immigrant's experiences in America in this work. The story of a young girl who just arrived in the United States, who knows no English, and who carries an illusion of what America is supposed to be like, this story is a realistic view of what hundres of thousands of people faced when they first stepped foot on our shores.
The character in this story is constantly getting taken advantage of because of her lack on ability to speak English, and because of her naivity, being a young woman trying to make her way in a land that promises to be almost like heaven. She learns eventually that America is not the promised land, but she is able, through her own hard work and determination, to find America through her writing about the ghetto. This is obviously a very auto-biographical story for Yezierska.
Though dark at times, I think this story is the least cynical of the three stories I studied. It is very hard on Americans, but it is impossible to say that it is racist because even her own countrymen take advantage of her and leave her penniless. Despite the trials and the horrible things the young woman goes through, Yezierska has made this story a story of strength.
Hard work is made a focus, and is treated as a saving grace for anyone willing to do it. It is very hopeful, though the final lines are sobering. This is where Yezierska comments on all of the people who do not succeed in being accepted into America, and the treasures the country is losing because of this.
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