The Quest for Self-Expression: Anzia Yezierska’s Portrayal of America as a Fake Golden Country

Abstract

The aim of this study is to show how the experience of Eastern European Jewish women in America challenged the discourse of the American Dream that they had previously fabricated in their homelands at the turn of the twentieth century. As portrayed by the Polish-born American writer Anzia Yezierska, whose family migrated to New York at the time, these women initially aim their efforts towards achieving happiness through their belief that America provides equal opportunities for upward mobility. However, they eventually question their prospects of improvement and progress by creating their own Jewish American experience. In two of her short stories, “How I Found America” and “The Miracle,” Yezierska reproduces the hopelessness of her Jewish characters after they have faced the burdens of social exclusion and the classist policies of philanthropic programs of integration. Rather than completely assimilating American standards, the protagonists seek to build their own American experience while maintaining their Jewish cultural background, which paradoxically finds expression through institutional courses designed for newcomers.