Ricky Fountain
Professor Levecq
LIT 309
22 February 2015
The Cultural Shift of Immigrants in Hungry Hearts
Throughout “Wings”, “Hunger”, “The Lost Beautifulness”, and “The Fat of the Land”, four stories in Hungry Hearts, the protagonist in each story immigrates to America with much optimism for a better life, but soon realizes that it’s not all she imagined it to be. Hungry Hearts seems to suggest that America can bring success and joy to everyone, including immigrants, but it will come at a cost of integrating into a new world and nation different from their own. Instead of making the easy transition into this new society, the characters come to the realization that there will be some give and take with adjusting to this new world. She implies that cultural traditions and heritages may have to be forfeited or lessened in this new world to make room for what is socially acceptable in America. This is only if one wants to be successful and take full advantage of the American dream and all this country has to offer.
For immigrants who seem to be able to merge the various aspects of each culture successfully, they learn that American society doesn’t really view them equally, but instead looks upon them as a lower class citizen compared to naturalized citizens. In “Wings”, Shenah Pessah, the protagonist is on adolescent immigrant who looks forward to making something of herself, brimming with joy and aspiration to improve her life. In the new world her life seemingly becomes better when she meets a young professor, John Barnes, who represents everything she wanted to be in America. Unknown to her are his true motives of his interests in her. When she says she’s from Russia, the first thing he thinks of is: “So he was in their midst, the people he came to study. The girl with her hungry eyes and intense eagerness now held a new interest for him” (Yezierska 7). To Barnes, Shenah is nothing more than a specimen to study. As Ann Mikkelsen points out, Anzia Yezierska, had a deep personal connection to this topic: “The contrast between the emotional, artistic Jewish American woman and the cool rational Anglo-American man was the source of much material for Yezierska” (361). Some may feel that Yezierska’s writing may be contributing to the stereotype of the Jewish woman and Anglo-American man, but I feel that she is simply pulling from details and points of her life that bring a stronger connection to the reader like the previous excerpt says. She isn’t saying that this is a typical relationship between the two types of people, but that it is the relationship aspect for some like her and her character.
Before their emigration, the main characters of each story had their own views of America and its culture, seeing it as a free and independent country until they arrived and saw, first hand, how different the society truly was and the its harsh and demoralizing reality, none of which they hoped it would be. In ‘The Lost Beautifulness”, Hannah Hayyeh is doing fairly well for herself and things seem to be going splendidly for her up until she decides to redo the kitchen since her son is returning from war. The kitchen turns out great and she knows her son will love it. Things take a turn for the worse when the landlord chooses to increase the rent to pay for the increase in his own houses cost. She takes her growing concerns and anger to the landlord, but he replies “That don’t concern me. If you can’t pay, somebody else will. I got to look out for myself. In America everybody looks out for himself” (Yezierska 53). He later goes on to exclaim that he couldn’t care what she had done to “improve” the house because she didn’t do it for him: “It’s nothing to me how the house looks, so long as I got my rent in time” (53). Hannah can’t accept this and goes to court to fight her raise in rent, but the judge rules in favor of the landlord having the right to raise rent as he sees fit. With a Jewish landlord, one would assume that they would try to look out after their own in such a foreign country, but the landlord really makes the case that once in America you must adapt to survive and only you have your back. Everyone else is out to get their own wealth and won’t hesitate to step on you to get there. Her initial feeling of America was one of democracy and fairness, but now she sees how equality is not extended to everyone and her entire idea of this country has forever changed.
Furthermore, while trying to integrate to American culture, the immigrants realize that they will have to make sacrifices, which will come at the expense of their native culture and traditions. When looking at the main character in “The Fat of the Land” Hanna Breineh, whose children are doing well enough in life to by their mother a luxury apartment, we see how she begins to feel like she is losing her basic cultural identity. This starts when she returns home and the doorman refuses to let her bring her own groceries up to her apartment due to it being against the complex rules: “Ain’t this America? Ain’t this a free country? Can’t I take up in my own house what I buy with my own money?” (131). This conflict frustrates her as she just wants to be able to have simple liberties, like being able to take her groceries to her room without being badgered. As the story goes on, we see her frustrations bring her to the realization that even though she has claimed the American dream of wealth and success, she yearns for the cultural traditions of Russia that she cannot receive in America. Because of this she tries to fully engulf herself in as much Russian culture in America as possible. This still seems to not be enough to overcome the feeling given to her by the doorman.
All in all, finding a comfortable balance between cultures is a pivotal part of immigration in the stories of Hungry Hearts. Their ideas of what American culture is has been challenged by what they have seen since being in this new culture and everything that they have escaped from they realize is not limited to their home nation, but can happen in America. We also learn, from outside sources that the author, Yezierska, drew from her own experiences in some of the stories as an immigrant. This gives the readers a further insight into the troubles that immigrants go through when re-acclimating to a new place and new culture. They must adapt themselves so that they can succeed and enjoy the “American Dream”. From work to joining a new community, they will learn what it truly means to be an American and the hardships that some un-nationalized citizens go through on a daily basis.

Works Cited Yezierska, Anzia. Hungry Hearts. New York: Penguin Group, 1920. Mikkelsen, Ann. “From Sympathy to Empathy: Anzia Yezierska and the Transformation of the American Subject”. American Literature 82.2 (2010): 361-388.