Customer Reviews

Imagining America: Stories from the Promised Land

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Many American short stories that are well known are written by caucasian authors, typically male. "Imagining America," however, offers a more multi-cultural view of the country. The editors separated this edition into four sections: Arriving, Belonging, Crossings and Remembering. These were not predetermined separations, but the stories that were selected seemed to fall into these categories (as explained in the introduction). I would recommend this book to anybody with an interest in literature, particularly those with a prediliction for short stories.

I am a college-level literature and writing instructor who has used this text twice when teaching an Ethnic Literature course that my department offers. The text has many interesting selections for multicultural study; I especially like that students get introduced to writers "off the beaten path". Unfortunately, this text is so full of typos and other writing errors that I refuse to use it again. I am on the hunt for a more professionally written text in this field of study. This one simply does not reflect college-level writing standards for my students and I feel it is irresponsible for me to teach with it.

The stories in this anthology are poorly written, with, in my estimation, the only choosing factor being that it must be a slam against America, freedom, hope, or values.

Every "white" person is evil, especially police.

Whatever happened to "the content of our character, not the color of our skin"?