Immigrant Voices, Volume 2 [Paperback]

A compelling collection of essays providing a comprehensive vision of immigration to the United States in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries—the indispensable companion toImmigrant Voices.

Filled with moving narratives by authors from around the world,Immigrant Voices: Volume IIdelivers a global and intimate look at the challenges modern immigrants confront. Their stories, told with pride, humor, trepidation, candor, and a touch of homesickness, offer rarely glimpsed perspectives on the difficult but ultimately rewarding quest to become an American.

From the humorous experiences of Firoozeh Dumas, author ofFunny in Farsi, to the poignant struggles of Oksana Marafioti, author ofAmerican Gypsy, this collection travels from Burundi to Afghanistan, Egypt to Havana, and Cambodia to Puerto Rico, to present incredible contemporary portraits of immigrants and illustrate that America is, and always will remain, a fresh and ever-changing melting pot.

Featuring Firsthand Accounts by
André Aciman, Tamim Ansary, H.B. Cavalcanti, Firoozeh Dumas, Gustavo Pérez Firmat, Reyna Grande, Le Ly Hayslip, Aleksandar Hemon, Rose Ihedigbo, Oksana Marafioti, Anchee Min, Shoba Narayan, Elizabeth Nunez, Guillermo Reyes, Marcus Samuelsson, Katarina Tepesh, Gilbert Tuhabonye, Loung Ung, Kao Kalia Yang

INTRODUCTION

As a kind of birthright, Americans grow up with the idea that theirs is a “nation of immigrants,” and of course it has been and continues to be. But does this phrase have the same resonance in every generation or even every century? Questions about what kind of and how many immigrants we should have are now as controversial a subject as they have ever been in our past. For at every stage of the hl³