Imagining America: Stories from the Promised Land [Paperback]

Wesley Brown (Editor), Amy Ling (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1991

37 short stories reflect the immigrant experience across cultural, generational, and historical settings: Cisneros, Yezierska, Silko, Mukherjee, Hijuelos, Yamamoto, Malamud, Jen, A.Walker, Sui Sin Far, et. al.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Although the multiculturalistic focus will seem trendy to some, this compilation demonstrates what a tangy stew simmers in the American melting pot. Once an accomplished Berlin journalist, Bernard Malamud's Jewish refugee is haunted by Nazi atrocities and "a terrible sense of useless tongue"; Mary Gordon's lame Irish American reinvents herself as a secretarial whiz to the exclusion of greenhorn friends; and upon his arrival in Florida, Kim Yong Ik's Korean student finds that a happy-go-lucky American soldier he had befriended at home is an impoverished alcoholic. The cultures represented here are disparate but the deeply felt experiences of alienation and assimilation are strikingly similar. In Jack Forbes's scenario, a basketball team is disqualified from an all-Indian tournament because its tribe is not federally recognized; Gish Jen's first-generation Chinese American narrator has a father who runs his pancake business like a paternalistic overlord and a mother who wants to join the local country club; Oscar Hijuelos's struggling Cubans give safe harbor to newer emigres who then out-prosper their benefactors; and Toni Cade Bambara's young black protagonist gets an unwelcome lesson on the difference between society's haves and have-nots. Brown and Ling are academics affiliated with Rutgers and the University of Wisconsin, respectively.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

YA-- An anthology of 37 short stories from writers of various ethnic backgrounds. A common thread is the immigrant experience--trying to reconcile the ``American Dream'' with what is sometimes a less-exalted reality. An excellent tool for exposing YAs to the multicultural experience.

Copyright 1992 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 370 pages
• Publisher: Persea Books (November 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0892551674
• ISBN-13: 978-0892551675
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,483,394 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good for university classrooms, June 14, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Imagining America: Stories from the Promised Land (Paperback)

Excellent variety of multi-cultural American writing. Offers new materials for thinking about immigration, immigrants' experiences, etc. I've used it in an Introduction to Fiction class at a university with good success.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Packed with important authors and works, May 16, 2003

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Imagining America: Stories from the Promised Land, Revised Edition (Paperback)

This revised edition of an original 1991 publication in multicultural American fiction provides eleven new authors to join the others profiled in the prior anthology. Add a time line of historical events from 1900 to present times within the context of these short stories and you have a rich blend of multicultural history in fiction which is packed with important authors and works.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars America the Melting Pot, (or perhaps a tossed salad!), February 8, 2007

By 

Genine M. Hopkins "Struggling Student" (Houghton Lake, Michigan) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Imagining America: Stories from the Promised Land, Revised Edition (Paperback)

Imagining America is a fine collection of stories showing the diverse and at times emotional views of immigrants into our country. The collection is not afraid to provide glimpses of how poorly America has treated some of its immigrants and paints an accurate depiction of how these immigrants found their experience in America upon entry.

Because of its diverse collection of stories, no stone is left unturned. I would highly recommend this text to teachers and students alike, as well as those seeking to understand the "salad" that is America.