America and I

Anzia Yezierska 1923

Anzia Yezierska, known as the “Queen of the Ghetto” or “The Immigrant Cinderella,” became a literary sensation in 1920 after the publication of her first volume of short stories, Hungry Hearts. Despite this instant celebrity, her career was erratic: her work had fallen out of popular favor by the 1930s, but she had a resurgence in 1950, with publication of the autobiographical Red Ribbon on a White Horse. Almost thirty years after Yezierska’s death, Alice Kessler-Harris reintroduced her to the English-speaking public when she published The Open Cage: An Anzia Yezierska Collection.

“America and I,” originally appearing in 1923 in Children of Loneliness, is one of three autobiographical articles in the book. While all of Yezierska’s work takes as its most important theme the immigrant’s creation of her place in America, in “America and I,” she addresses these issues in a more direct manner. Her difficulties are multifold: not only must she learn to communicate with Americans, she must convince them that she has something worthy to say. Yezierska’s experiences also take on a deeper, more universal meaning; in sharing the hard road to fulfillment of her creative goals, Yezierska chronicles the challenges that face all aspiring writers.