America and I

The primary figure in the essay is the author, a Russian Jewish immigrant; all other characters are devoid of names that might identify them.

Yezierska, born in 1885, is from a town on the Russian-Polish border. Her family immigrated to the US in 1892, settling among other Eastern European Jews in New York’s Lower East Side. She was the youngest child in her family, having taking the Americanized name Hattie Mayer when she entered the country. She presents herself here as a “voiceless” immigrant (Paragraph 1) with a strong body and a hopeful heart, ready to blossom in the America of her dreams—one of full self-expression—only to discover that version of America is a myth.

Yezierska’s work, first as a nanny and housekeeper, then sewing buttons and doing other factory work, is not enough for her. Repetitive tasks that do not utilize her mind are the only work available to her but do not offer the outlets she seeks for self-actualization. She tries to find the America she is longing for and fails, until she realizes that has been searching for a “ready made” (Paragraph 103) America; this is instead an unfinished country with unrealized promise, and she must help turn it into what she wants it to be.