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The Immigrant Experience in America: Fiction

This list of novels includes books showing the two constant themes in stories about immigrants in the U. S.: the American dream of succeeding against the odds and protecting native cultures from being taken over by American values.

Today’s literature includes emerging voices from many cultures, such as Asian, Latin American and Caribbean. And our fiction is increasingly reflecting the struggles of second generation Americans who want to maintain their cultural heritage while developing America’s identities.

 

Abu-Jaber, Diana. Arabian Jazz. 1993.
Zaeed attempts to integrate the things he loves -- American jazz and Arab folktales -- while making a life for his family in upstate New York.

Ager, Waldemar. Sons of the Old Country. 1926.
Norwegian immigrants optimistically struggle with frontier life in a Wisconsin lumbering town.

Alvarez, Julia. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents. 1992.
Four sisters from the Dominican Republic try to shed their pasts and become “American” in 1960s New York.

Boyle, T. Coraghessan. The Tortilla Curtain. 1995.
When a wealthy California nature writer accidentally hits an illegal Mexican immigrant with his car, both of their lives are changed dramatically.

Cather, Willa. My Antonia. 1918.
Pioneering the American Midwest, a Bohemian immigrant girl overcomes incredible hardship in order to flourish.

Cavanaugh, Arthur. The Faithful. 1986.
An Irish nun compromises her wishes to help the poor by seeking the aid of an upwardly-mobile moan.

Charyn, Jerome. Panna Maria. 1982.
Stefan Wilde oversees a Polish tenement in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen at the turn of the century.

Chin, Frank. Donald Duk. 1991.
The young Chinese-American narrator of this novel distains everything Chinese; the New Year’s Festival in Chinatown becomes his rite of passage and doorway to acceptance.

Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. 1985.
A young girl, Esperanza Cordero, comes of age in Chicago’s Latino section.

Danticat, Edwidge. Breath, Eyes, Memory. 1994.
A Santeria ceremony exorcises the demons of a Haitian-American girl in New York.

Divakaruni, Chitra Bajerjee. Arranged Marriage. 1995.
Several stories recount the struggle of people from India to understand life in the United States.

Doctorow, E. L. Ragtime. 1975.
Major figures in American history permeate this saga of immigrants to New York at the turn of the century.

Fleming, Stephen. The Exile of Sergeant Nen. 1986.
A former general in the South Vietnamese army becomes a waiter in Washington, D.C.’s suburbs.

Fox, Paula. A Servant’s Tale. 1984.
After her family flees their Caribbean island fearing revolution, a young girl becomes a servant in order to escape the poverty of a New York tenement.

Gardner, Mary. Boat People.
Vietnamese immigrants are puzzled by life in Galveston, Texas.

Goldstein, Rebecca. The Late Summer Passion of a Woman of Mind. 1989.
A German professor of philosophy at an American university is attracted to one of her students.

Guterson, David. Snow Falling on Cedars. 1994.
Shortly after World War II, a Japanese man is accused of murder in a small Washington town.

Hamill, Pete. Snow in August. 1997.
A young catholic boy in Brooklyn in the late 1940s forms a bond with a rabbi, a recent immigrant from Prague.

Hijuelos, Oscar. The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. 1989.
Cuban musicians become the toast of New York night life.

Jen, Gish. Typical American. 1991.
Drawn to the safety and opportunity of the United States, a Chinese family succumbs to the darker elements of American society: greed, glamour, and adultery.

Karbo, Karen. Trespassers Welcome Here. 1989.
Russian emigres in Los Angeles struggle to understand American culture.

Kincaid, Jamaica. Lucy. 1990.
Working as an au pair for a wealthy couple, a young West Indian woman witnesses their family problems.

Kingston, Maxine H. China Men. 1980.
The author tells the stories of her patriarchial forbears whose lives she reconstructs out of memory and imagination.

Koenig, Joseph. Little Odessa. 1988.
A Russian dancer in Brooklyn’s Little Odessa becomes entangled in a web of crime and intrigue.

Lee, Gus. China Boy. 1991.
A young boy overcomes his sisters’ rapid Americanization and his stepmother’s efforts to eradicate his Chinese culture in 1950s San Francisco.

Manrique, Jaime. Latin Moon in Manhattan. 1992.
Santiago Martinez plans for a quiet summer are interrupted by a series of rollicking adventures among the Latino community of Jackson Heights, Queens.

Marshall, Paule. Brown Girl, Brownstones. 1959.
Barbadian immigrants struggle to overcome poverty and racism in depression-era Brooklyn.

Moberg, V. The Emigrants. 1951.
In this first volume of a series, the Nilsson family emigrates from Sweden in 1850.

Monardo, Anna. The Courtyard of Dreams. 1993.
After spending a summer in Italy, the U.S.-born daughter of immigrants questions her identity as an American.

Mukherjee, Bharati. Jasmine. 1989.
Desire to escape from isolation takes Jasmine on a journey from her small Indian village to married life in Manhattan.

Narayan, Kirin. Love, Stars, and All That. 1995.
An Indian graduate student looks for love at Berkeley.

Nunez, Sigrid. A Feather on the Breath of God. 1995.
The daughter of a Chinese-Panamian father and a German mother embarks on an affair with a Russian emigre.

Obejas, Achy. We Came All the Way from Cuba So You Could Dress Like This? 1994.
These stories describe the double struggle of being both an immigrant and gay or lesbian.

Petrakis, Harry M. The Odyssey of Kostas Volakis. 1963.
Newly-married Kostas and Katarina emigrate from Crete to a new life in the Greek community of Chicago.

Puzo, Mario. Fortunate Pilgrim. 1965.
A classic chronicle of Italian immigrant life, written before the popular Godfather.

ROLVAAG, O. E. Giants in the Earth. 1927.
Settling the harsh plains of Sorth Dakota, a Norwegian man becomes a successful farmer while his marriage crumbles under the frontier hardship.

Roth, Henry. Call It Sleep. 1934.
A Jewish childhood in the ghettos of Brownsville and the lower east side is portrayed.

Saroyan, William. My Name is Aram. 1937.
Life in Fresno, California, is explored through the eyes of an Armenian boy.

Schaeffer, Susan Fromberg. Love. 1980.
As his daughters begin to leave home, a pharmacist reminisces about the mysterious women who took him in when he was abandoned as a child in Russia.

Segal, Lore. Her First American. 1985.
This is a story of the unlikely relationship between a 21-year-old Jeiwsh refugee from Hitler and a black 50-year-old alcoholic she meets in a bar.

Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. 1905.
A Lithuanian immigrant’s family suffers extreme hardship as he labors for slave wages and under appalling conditions in Chicago’s stockyards and slaughterhouses.

Singer, Isaac Bashevis. Meshugah. 1994.
A Polish journalist becomes embroiled in the lives of fellow concentration camp survivors in New York during the early 1950s.

Stewart, Fred Mustard. Ellis Island. 1983.
A chance meeting on a ship bound for New York begins this epic tale of immigrant life in America.

Styron, William. Sophie’s Choice. 1976.
A young Southern writer becomes entranced by his neighbor’s lover, a mysterious Polish woman.

Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club. 1989.
A daughter takes her mother’s place at the mah-jongg table and learns to appreciate the older women who knew life in China before 1949.

Woiwode, Larry. The Neumiller Stories. 1989.
An immigrant family struggles to maintain the values they brought with them to the United States.

Yezierska, Anzia. Bread Givers. 1925.
A rabbi’s daughter rebels against traditional Jewish immigrant society by living on her own and supporting herself.