Examples Of Assimilation In Breadgiver

Assimilation is different for everyone. Whether it is going to a new school, joining a club, or even moving to another state or country, most people experience assimilation at least once in their lives. The book, Breadgivers, by Anzia Yezierska, is a good example on the assimilation process and how different it can be for people. Sara is a young girl who moved to The New World, otherwise known as New York City, with her parents and sisters from a small village in Poland. From the start, she knows she must assimilate to this new country that she now lives in. She follows her dreams to be who she wants, rather than who her father wants her to be. Throughout the story, Yezierska shows all of the characters and how they assimilated to life in New

She is constantly striving to reach her dreams in any way possible, whether it be becoming a teacher, or even something as simple as generating money for her family. These traits of Sara’s is what pushes her assimilation process along and ahead of the rest of her family. In her mind, she thinks, “Now I was the teacher. Why didn't I feel as I had supposed this superior creature felt? Why had I not the wings to fly with ? Where was the vision lost ? The goal was here.” (Yezierska 269). Yezierska shows the readers that Sara reached her goal in life through determination. Though she didn’t feel completely satisfied once she reached her goal, her assimilation helped her get there. Between wanting to learn English better and to not be anything like her father, Sara became better assimilated to America through her experiences in social situations. Though she is more assimilated than the rest of her family, she still isn’t completely assimilated and

He refuses to adapt to the ways of the New World, and instead stays stuck in his ways from when the family lived in Poland and everyone around them was Jewish too. At the end of the novel, Yezierska shows how Reb not assimilating comes back to him for the worse. When Sara runs into her dad on the streets in the end of the book, she thinks, “How changed he was! How old and suffering! He, the master - with the stoop of poverty on his back! And I had been so happy!” (Yezierska 285). Yezierska shows the readers how Reb not being assimilated potentially ended up being his downfall, or at least put him into poverty and took a toll on his physical appearance. She later tells the readers how because Reb would not get a job, and his wife doesn’t work, the two of them went into poverty and how his wife is basically waiting for him to die so she can get his lodge money. Even in his last days, however, Reb is still stuck in his old Jewish ways, and blames his downfall on the fact that Sara and her sisters all became too Americanized and wouldn’t help him out and give him and his wife