Overview

Taking a stance for immigration, this personal meditation has universal repercussions by incorporating the voices of immigrants both past and present. As author Ilan Stavans says, immigration is always about the unexpected; it is a state of constant flux, where things are not what they appear to be. The author questions whether the American dream, its symbol of the Statue of Liberty, and the welcoming words of Emma Lazarus' sonnet still hold true. At the core of this work is the question: If the line Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teaming shore is a contract on immigration that America has made with itself, to what extent has that contract been upheld? As America becomes increasingly multiethnic and multicultural, have we redefined and dismissed a founding principle and the 19th-century understanding of immigration? This is a challenging and unique argument for immigration from historical, political, and cultural perspectives.

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9781556527418

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Ilan Stavans is a disciple of Kafka and Borges. He accepts social identity broadly, in the most cosmopolitan terms... His impulse is to broaden, not to narrow; he finds understanding through complication of identity, not through the easy gestures of ethnic politics. -- New York Times

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