All this Islamophobic right wing radio talk about religious " radicalization ". What has been mostly ignored is the disillusioned immigrant story as an untold chapter in those " American Experience " TV documentaries. This was the main theme of Upton Sinclair's classic, socialist novel " The Jungle " published more than a century ago. Philistine critics imagined that it was just a graphic expose of the unregulated meat processing industry.
My Italian immigrant grandparents discovered Sinclair's " Jungle " in Providence 's Federal Hill neighborhood about a century ago. I just read an article by URI labor history professor, Scott Molloy, about the " Macaroni Riots " on the hill in 1915.
I can only imagine what kind of " jungle " the Mexican immigrants experience even in " immigrant friendly " Rhode Island. I recall reading " The Children of Sanchez " - what a nightmare of alienation, exploitation, and oppression-not helped by an abyss of ignorance.
The Irish- American immigrant experience was made vivid to me by the stories of James T. Farrell . And the immortal novel " Studs Lonigan ".
The black slaves , of course, were not immigrants. " We did not land on Plymouth Rock ", said Malcolm X. " Plymouth Rock landed on us ! ".
Literature too can be liberating !
My Italian immigrant grandparents discovered Sinclair's " Jungle " in Providence 's Federal Hill neighborhood about a century ago. I just read an article by URI labor history professor, Scott Molloy, about the " Macaroni Riots " on the hill in 1915.
I can only imagine what kind of " jungle " the Mexican immigrants experience even in " immigrant friendly " Rhode Island. I recall reading " The Children of Sanchez " - what a nightmare of alienation, exploitation, and oppression-not helped by an abyss of ignorance.
The Irish- American immigrant experience was made vivid to me by the stories of James T. Farrell . And the immortal novel " Studs Lonigan ".
The black slaves , of course, were not immigrants. " We did not land on Plymouth Rock ", said Malcolm X. " Plymouth Rock landed on us ! ".
Literature too can be liberating !
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| Also in " The American Experience " - the disillusioned immigrants |
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