From Dirt Paths to Golden Streets
Poems of Immigrant Experiences
by
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THANK YOU NOTES Darwin was right! The strongest do survive!
They leave their low estate where there’s no free air to breathe, no honest work to feed themselves. The strong and fit will find a way, nightwalking across a hidden stream, crowding on a smuggler’s boat, living hope in a jungle camp, reborn to freedom from a secret womb of a carved-out car, waiting in endless visa lines to escape a gulag nation. Their power drives them forward as pistons drive the engine arms that move the world. Some marry the American dream; others are adopted as dreamt-for children. This golden land receives the gifts of their strength, their genes, their sacred blood. We whose lives are blessed by fair elections, open land to travel free, by clean water, schools and work, should send thank you notes to Brezhnev, Castro, Jiang, Saddam – dictators, autocrats, despots, thieves and commissars – who drove their best and brightest to our shores.
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About the Book
The poems in this book are the personal stories of immigration to the United States, from the 19th Century to the early 21st Century. These poems are often in the voices of New Americans from many different cultures: African, Arab, Hungarian, Japanese, Korean, Mexican, Polish, Russian, and Vietnamese. The poems explore their reasons for immigration as well as the challenges and benefits of becoming American.
About the Author
Merle Fischlowitz is a second-generation American, but he has a long acquaintance with immigrants to the U.S. He is married to an immigrant, the father of an immigrant, and has maintained friendships with New American citizens from many lands. Merle has written poetry for over 50 years, and enjoys using poetic imagery and his knowledge of history to tell stories of New Americans.
Merle is a graduate of Grinnell College in History, and holds a doctorate in Counseling from St. Louis University. He had an extensive career in education and counseling, having lived in Missouri, Maryland, Hawaii and California.