Paul H. Elovitz and Charlotte Kahn have, in Immigrant Experiences: Personal Narrative and Psychological Analysis, brought us a gripping compilation of intimate narratives, intertwined with psychological analysis, of the immigrant experience. Twentieth-century history comes alive as editors Elovitz and Kahn present two kinds of narrative. One is their authors’ personal experiences of immigration or their being affected by the immigrant experiences of the family. The second is their authors’ descriptions of the experiences of their patients as immigrants. For the most part, this anthology — punctuated by discrimination, persecution, and genocide — brings together case studies of traumatic dislocations that have consequences not only for the immigrant and his or her family but also for extended members of the family for several generations. There is, therefore, much heuristic value in Immigrant Experiences.
Eva Fogelman (Wed,) studied this question.