Immigrant Women

Maxine Schwartz Seller is Professor in the Graduate School of Education and Adjunct Professor in the Department of History at the State University of New York at Buffalo. She is the author of To Seek America: A History of Ethnic Life in the United States and Ethnic Theater in the United States.

"This book is a collection of first-hand accounts of the experiences and conditions surrounding the emigration of women from other countries to the United States during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This first-hand narrative format engages the reader and opens up a world of events and encounters that I have not found in any other collection. The book is full of information and insights into the lives of women emigrating from many countries, including the struggles of unmarried Bohemian women as they successfully strive for social acceptance as single parents, and the frightening experiences of Golda Meir as a child leaving Czarist Russia in 1906. It is an excellent work whose narrative, story-telling nature makes it interesting to read." — Joan K. Smith, Loyola University

• Introduction Part I: Why They Came 1. About a Wheat Field and a Bowl of Barley Porridgeby Vilhelm Moberg 2. "Factory Girls"by Chea Villanueva 3. "My Education and Aspirations Demanded More"by Marie Zakrzewska 4. "He Has the Right to Command You"by Marie Hall Ets 5. "I Remember How Scared I Was"by Golda Meir 6. "I Am Alive to Tell You This Story …"by Anonymous Part II: Surviving in a New Land 1. Issei Women: "Picture Brides" in Americaby Emma Gee 2. "I Escaped with My Life"by Guri Endreson 3. "Urbanization Without Breakdown"by Corinne Azen Krause 4. The Diary of a Rent Striker: "Harlem and Hope"by Innocencia Flores 5. "Paths upon Water"by Tahira Naqvi 6. Strategies for Growing Old: Basha Is a Survivorby Barbara Myerhoff Part III: Work 1. "Better We Glean Than Our Children Starve"by Hope Williams Sykes 2. A Physician in the "First True 'Woman's Hospital' in the World"by Marie Zakrzewska 3. "The Duties of the Housewife Remain Manifold and Various"by Sophonisba Breckinridge 4. "With Respect and Feelings": Voices of West Indian Child Care and Domestic Workers in New York Cityby Shellee Colen 5. The Immigrant Woman and Her Job: Agnes D., Mrs. E., Angelina, Minnie, Louise M., and Theresa M.by Caroline Manning 6. "I Consider Myself a 'Theater Worker'..."by Dolores Frida Part IV: Family 1. "She Will Deny Herself Innocent Enjoyments": Dutiful Irish Daughtersby John Francis Maguire 2. Unmarried Mothersby Grace Abbott 3. Syrian Women in Chicago: "New Responsibilities … New Skills"by Safia Haddad 4. "Once You Marry Someone It Is Forever"by Michiko Tanaka 5. The Vine and the Fruitby Hope Williams Sykes 6. "We Want to Give a Complete Picture of Who We Are" "Palm Sunday 1981"by Lorenza Compañeras (Introduction) by Mariana Romo-Carmona 7. A Family Disrupted: "Shikata Ga Nai "—This Cannot Be Helped"by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston Part V: Community Life 1. "If One Could Help Another"by Vilhelm Moberg 2. "Let Us Join Hands": The Polish Women's Allianceby Thaddeus Radzialowski 3. Rosa and the Chicago Commons: "How Can I Not Love America?"by Marie Hall Ets 4. "The Free Vacation House,"by Anzia Yezierska 5. "I Bridge a Gap Between Two Cultures": Lyu-Volckhausen, Advocate for the Korean Communityby Anne Field 6. "People Who Do This Kind of Work Are in Such Danger of Burnout": Judy Baca, "Urban Artist"by Diane Neumaier Part VI: Education 1. "The Lessons Which Most Influenced My Life... Came from My Parents"by Harriet Pawlowska 2. "An Impossible Dream": The Struggle for Higher Educationby Elizabeth Loza Newby 3. The Stubborn Twig: "My Double Dose of Schooling"by Monica Sone 4. "I Am a Housewife": English Lessons for Vietnamese Womenby Gail Paradise Kelly 5. "Glad That I Am the Future"by a Memphis teenager 6. Unfulfilled Aspirations: "Never Used the Brush and Ink"by Teiko Tomita Part VII: Social and Political Activists 1. At the End of the Santa Fe Trailby Sister Blandina Segale 2. "This Is Law, But Where Is the Justice of It"by Ernestine Potowski Rose 3. "In Memoriam—American Democracy"by Emma Goldman 4. The March of the Mill Childrenby Mary Harris ("Mother") Jones 5. Fasting for Suffrage: "We Don't Want Other Women Ever to Have to Do This Over Again"by Rose Winslow 6. "Black Women of the World … Push Forward"by Amy Jacques Garvey 7. "Why Did I Put Up With It All These Years": The Farah Strikeby Lauri Coyle, Gail Hershatter, and Emily Honig Part VIII: Daughters and Granddaughters 1. A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipeby Maxine Hong Kingston 2. The Parish and the Hillby Mary Doyle Curran 3. "This Is Selina"by Paule Marshall 4. "We Can Begin to Move toward Sisterhood"by Barbara Mikulski 5. Join My Struggle: "A Poem for Marshall"by Anne Martinez 6. Asian-American Women and Feminism: "Gender Equality … Is Not the Exclusive Agenda"by Lucie Cheng 7. Generations of Womenby Janice Mirikitani Bibliographical Essay Index