In stories that draw heavily on her own life, Anzia Yezierska portrays the immigrant's struggle to become a real American, in such stories as Yekl, Hunger, The Fat of the Land, and How I Found America. Set mostly in New York's Lower East Side, the stories brilliantly evoke the oppressive atmosphere of crowded streets and shabby tenements and lay bare the despair of families trapped in unspeakable poverty, working at demeaning jobs, and coping with the barely hidden prejudices of their new land.

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