Becoming Americans : immigrants tell their stories from Jamestown to today / edited by Ilan Stavans ; foreword by Pete Hamill

"A special publication of the Library of America."

Originally published in hardcover in 2009 as: Becoming Americans : four centuries of immigrant writing

Includes bibliographical references (p. 707-717) and index

Foreword / Pete Hamill -- Introduction / Ilan Stavens -- Letter to His Mother and Father / Richard Frethorne -- "Upon the First Sight of New England" / Thomas Tillam -- "The Poor Unhappy Transported Felon's Sorrowful Account" / James Revel -- from Some Memoirs of the Life of Job ... Who Was a Slave about Two Years in Maryland / Ayuba Suleiman Diallo -- from Journey to Pennsylvania / Gottlieb Mittelberger -- from Letters from an American Farmer / J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur -- -- from "On being brought from Africa to America" / Phillis Wheatley -- from "Myself" / John James Audubon -- from Memoirs / Lorenzo Da Ponte -- from Journals / Fanny Kemble -- from Annie Reilly / John McElgun -- from The Story of an Emigrant / Hans Mattson -- from Reminiscences / Carl Schurz -- from The Making of an American / Jacob Riis -- "Mrs. Spring Fragrance" / Edith Maude Eaton -- from The Education of Abraham Cahan / Abraham Cahan -- from Up Stream: An American Chronicle / Ludwig Lewisohn -- from The Promised Land / Mary Antin -- from The Third Life of Per Smevik / O.E. Rølvaag -- from "Children of Loneliness" / Anzia Yezierska -- Poetry by Chinese Immigrants -- from The Mysteries of New York / Menotti Pellegrino -- from On the Island of Tears: Ellis Island / Ludovico Caminita -- from Call It Sleep / Henry Roth -- "In the Golden Land" / Moyshe-Leyb Halpern -- from Barrio Boy / Ernesto Galarza -- "The Tropics in New York" / Claude McKay -- "America" / Claude McKay -- from Laughing in the Jungle / Louis Adamic -- from Charlie Chaplin's Own Story / Charles Chaplin -- from Chromos / Felipe Alfau -- from Memoirs / Bernardo Vega -- from Eat a Bowl of Tea / Louis Chu -- from America Is in the Heart / Carlos Bulosan -- "A Wedding in Brownsville" / Isaac Bashevis Singer -- from The Vienna Paradox / Marjorie Perloff -- "Say this city has ten million souls" / W.H. Auden -- from The Pill, Pygmy Chimps and Degas' Horse / Carl Djerassi -- from Atoms in the Family / Laura Fermi -- from Diaries / Christopher Isherwood -- from Letter to Walter von Molo / Thomas Mann

from Pnin / Vladimir Nabokov -- "Farewell in Welfare Island" / Julia de Burgos -- "Breaking Down the Glass Walls of Language" / Ariel Dorfman -- from Confessions of an Original Sinner / John Lukacs -- from Taking Risks / Joseph Pell -- "A Map of the Western Part of the County of Essex in England" / Denise Levertov -- from 'Tis / Frank McCourt -- from Out of Place / Edward Said -- "Immigrant Picnic" / Gregory Djanikian -- from "My Life Up to Now" / Thom Gunn -- from A Fly in the Soup / Charles Simic -- "Arrival" / Judith Ortiz Cofer -- from American Chica / Marie Arana -- "How I Got That Name" / Marilyn Chin -- "Our Papers" / Julia Alvarez -- from Milosz's ABC's / Czeslaw Milosz -- from "Cargo" / Luc Sante -- from The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit / Lucette Lagnado -- from The Gangster of Love / Jessica Hagedorn -- from Lost in Translation / Eva Hoffman -- "Self-Help for Fellow Refugees" / Li-Young Lee -- from Lucy / Jamaica Kincaid -- from Native Speaker / Chang-rae Lee -- from "Immigrant Mother" / Shirley Geok-lin Lim -- "Sometimes, as a child" / Olga Broumas -- "Dying in a Strange Country" / Tahira Naqvi -- "The Third and Final Continent" / Jhumpa Lahiri -- "Tío" / Luis H. Francia -- from "The Condition We Call Exile" / Joseph Brodsky -- from Monkey Bridge / Lan Cao -- from Drown / Junot Díaz -- "Grandmother's Tongue" / Josip Novakovich -- "The Mother Tongue Between Two Slices of Rye" / Gary Shteyngart -- "We Will Not Play the Harp Backward Now, No" / Greg Delanty -- from Before Night Falls / Reinaldo Arenas -- from The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears / Dinaw Mengestu -- from Brother, I'm Dying / Edwidge Danticat -- "Night" / Majid Naficy -- from "Autobiographical Essay" / Ilan Stavans -- "Barney Greengrass" / Norman Manea -- "Various Lives" / Anita Desai -- "The Nurse and the Novelist" / Anya Ulinich -- from Nowhere Man / Aleksandar Hemon -- "Mistress" / Lara Vapnyar -- from Hunger of Memory / Richard Rodriguez

Comprised mostly of memoirs with some fiction, this volume gathers selections from the writings of 85 immigrants from 45 countries that illustrate the changing views of immigrants in the United States