Book Review

Co-author book review by Arezoo Ataollahie and Raziye Kharidar
“The New Americans” by Ruben Martinez
Published in the United States by The New Press, New York, 2004
Distributed by W. W. Norton& Company, Inc.,New York
•Hardcover: 288 pages
•Publisher: New Press, The (March 2004)
•Language: English
•ISBN-10: 156584792X
•ISBN-13: 978-1565847927


"The New Americans" is written by Ruben Martinez who is a journalist, author and musician born in 1962, Los Angeles. He is the son of Rubén Martinez, a Mexican American who worked as a lithographer, and Vilma Angula, a Salvadoran psychologist. Among the themes covered in his works are: Immigrant life and globalization, the cultural and political history of Los Angeles (Martinez's hometown), the civil wars of the 1980s in Central America (his mother is a native of El Salvador), And Mexican politics and culture. (He is a second-generation Mexican-American on the father's side of his family (Wikipedia).
His professional career started from 1986 until 1993, when he was a writer and editor at AL weekly; becoming the first Latino on staff there. Subsequently, he became a contributing essayist to National Public Radio, and a TV host for the Los Angeles-based politics and culture series Life & Times, for which he won an Ammy Award. His essays, opinions, and reportage have appeared in most of the country's major newspapers and magazines.
Martinez’ books include: Flesh Life: Sex in Mexico (with Joseph Rodriguez, Powerhouse Books, 2006), The New Americans (New Press, 2004), a companion volume to the PBS series of the same name, Crossing Over: A Mexican Family over the Migrant Trail (Metropolitan/Holt, 2001), East Side Stories (with Joseph Rodriguez, Powerhouse Books, 1998), and The Other Side: Notes from the New L.A., Mexico City & Beyond (Vintage, 1993). As a political commentator, Martinez has made appearances On Nightline, Politically Incorrect, and Frontline. (Wikipedia)

In this book the author is trying to depict the plight, dreams and wishes of the immigrants who leave their countries and go to America in search of wealth and opportunity and a lot of difficulties are facing them. The author is not happy with the policies that are applied by the United States regarding immigration and especially the policies that were applied after 9/11 toward immigrants. To his point of view the immigrants that are coming to America after 9/11 are facing tough situations. Actually the author feels sorry for the new comers because of the new atmosphere that is prevailing in America in the sense that in the new situation people are more likely to get arrested because of their appearance and their complexion and people from east are seen as guilty of doing something wrong and even they are not free to appear in public the way they wish, because there are prejudices over the people from Asia and the eastern world , but we can say that this book is a descriptive book about the life of seven immigrant families that leave their homelands in pursuit of wealth and security and head toward America to fulfill their wishes and dreams. In this book Martinez tries to depict the difficulties that face immigrants in the process of arriving in America and becoming American. He is actually trying to show how America’s policies toward immigration have changed after September 11, 2001, and how immigration is changing America as well.

Descriptive analytic part:
The book starts with the story of a Palestinian family who migrates to Chicago. At first it is very difficult for them to depart from their relatives and homeland. In spite of the fact that they have been looking forward to leaving Palestine and go to America , now they see that the country and village and people and culture that most often they belittled, is the only culture that they knew and the only place that they sensed. Naima, the daughter of the family and the fiancée of Hatem had long waited for this occasion and had always imagined the future of her life in Chicago and the sense of achieving her dreams encompassed her. But now deportation is not that easy. Here are the sentences from Naima herself that depict her sense more accurately.
But she will know that she has left something essential behind. Not just her family or her old house or the sights and smells of the village.....It is something that is greater than the sum of these parts: history itself. Now she will be divorced from history, from herself. In America she will walk into another chapter of history and all the symbols will be rearranged beginning with language, and language she knows is not just a set of words and their definitions, it is a way of seeing the world(Palestine to Chicago, p27)
But after arriving in Chicago, she finds herself in a completely new world and like most of other immigrants who after a short time can assimilate in the new world culture, Naima tried to get the sense of Americanism and in spite of all the difficulties that faced her, could get the sense of assimilation. For example she no longer wore hijab as a scarf on the head and just dressed in casual American way, shirt and pants. Finally there is a sense of nostalgia and love for the history and the part of their identity that is left behind. The second chapter deals with the problems of a Nigerian family in America. One can see lots of similarities between the life if most immigrants. A sense of leaving part of themselves in their mother land and as a result leaving or more accurately losing part of their identity is pervasive in all the seven stories. In the story of Israel and Ngozi Nwidor from Nigeria, there is the story of an exile family, fleeing from the oppress ion and plight of life in their motherland and seeking refuge in the new world, America. There is a grim fact about migration that for the Nigerians it is difficult to get asylum and the point that for a person to get asylum it is important for the officials whether you are a political refugee or an economic one, because America doesn’t treat the refugees from the countries with dictatorial government s backed by U.s the same as the refugees from other countries. But generally speaking America is a kind of internal promise for those who flee from the harsh situations in their motherland and seek asylum in America.
Critical evaluative part:
Ruben Martinez in this book wants to depict the life and the difficulties that are evident in the life of newly arrived immigrants in the United States. He believes that all the immigrants that chose to come to America are suffering from a kind of oppression and injustice at home and cannot stand the harsh situation there, so they decide to leave their motherland to America. He believes that for the children of those immigrants it is easier to adapt to the new situation and the new environment, but for their parents it is not that much easy to adapt and for the teenagers who are at the stage of puberty and have some kind of connections to their motherland and had left some friends and peers there, it is very much difficult and they experience a kind of turmoil in themselves. And I think the writer has been successful in supporting his ideas by depicting the lives of seven immigrant families. He has been successful in supporting his ideas on the feeling of those newly arrived immigrants and could beautifully delineate their ideas and sentiments, but I think it is not a unique work about the life of newly arrived immigrants to the united states and although it is beautifully written, it does not offer anything new that has not been said before. In spite of all the difficulties that faces immigrants, the author seems to believe that it is better to live in America than in any other nation in the world, because in America there are lots of opportunities for every individual that can seek and come to prosperity but in those dictatorial motherlands there is no way out and you are imprisoned and cannot even think freely, and he believes that after a generation or two you are considered legal American citizen and you would look on those newly arrived as immigrants to your country.
Reference:
www.wikipedia.com
The New American by Ruben Martinez