The Bread Givers Themes

America is a country with a history founded on people looking for a new start and emigrating from the old world to fulfill their dreams. Immigration is not always happiness, rags to riches, and the American dream. Major immigration periods happened from 1607, 1820-1870 and again in the early 1900’s. Immigrant numbers were growing so exponentially that the National origins Act of 1921 and 1924 was enacted to put a quota limit that blatantly discriminated against immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. Immigrants that made it in faced many hardships such as learning new languages, abandoning family, and accepting the American values. But the perilous, extensive uprooting may not have been worth it in the long haul. While moving to America proved itself worthy for those escaping persecution and tyranny, it caused problems in the long run for others due to the isolation and poverty. Although immigration was a mistake for most, women and the persecuted thrived in America because of the freedom and safety offered. Anzia Yezlerska depicts the freedom women gained in her novel The Bread Givers. Women in the old ways were treated as an item

Oscar Handlin centers his work of The uprooted around the theme of isolation. He states they “lived now with inanimate objects, cut off from… surroundings” he said they were separated and missed their village. America also alienated immigrants because of the language difference. Richard Rodriguez explains how being forced to speak English distanced him from his family in Hunger of Memory. The Americanization he experienced didn’t destroy his family but “greatly changed” it. Secondly, T.A. Daly also experiences loneliness and is made fun of as depicted in his poem Canzoni. He “feela strange” and is called a “dago”. It was normal for immigrants to band together in neighborhoods and at work if they couldn’t assimilate into the American ways in order to try and fight this