Two-Countries: U.S. Daughters and Sons of Immigrant Parents - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Tina Schumann is the author of three poetry collections, As If (Parlor City Press, 2010), which was awarded the Stephen Dunn Poetry Prize, Requiem: A Patrimony of Fugues (Diode Editions, 2017), which won the 2016 Diode Editions chapbook competition, and Praising the Paradox (Red Hen Press, 2019). Her work was a finalist in the National Poetry Series, Four Way Books Intro Prize and the New Issues Prize. She is the recipient of the 2009 American Poet Prize from The American Poetry Journal and a Pushcart nominee. Her poems have appeared widely in publications and anthologies since 1999 including The American Journal of Poetry, Ascent, Cimarron Review, Crab Creek Review, Midwest Quarterly, Nimrod, Palabra, Parabola, Poemeleon, Poetry International, Terrian.org, and the Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine. Read more about Tina at www.tinaschumann.com

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

From the introduction of Two-Countries: US Daughters and Sons of Immigrant Parents

Looking back at my particular life circumstance and especially in light of my parent’s passing, I came to a realization that I wanted to give voice to those “American” kids like me and immigrants like my mother. I assumed there must be many who shared similar stories. In several of the pieces contained here I heard very familiar narratives that reminded me of my mother’s perspective and the situations that she and I faced because she was an immigrant. In Denise Valenti’s flash memoir “Spanish,” I recognized my own rejection of my mother’s language. There came a point as a child when I simply did not hear it. Spanish was her language, not mine. My mother never attempted to formerly teach me Spanish as Denise’s mother did, but would translate songs and specific words if I asked. She would sometimes speak short sentences to me in Spanish and I always answered her in English. Now, of course I wish I were fully bilingual.

In Gabriella Burman’s essay “Estela,” I saw my own mother’s propensities toward proper behavior, social rules, and standards that appeared stogie and old-fashioned to my siblings and me. My mother demanded that I wear a dress to elementary school every day except Wednesday when I was allowed to wear jeans like the other girls. How my mother looked when she left the house was of primary importance and a standard she tried to pass onto her growing daughter, but which often resulted in great conflict between us. If the world was going to judge her negatively by her accent, they certainly were not going to judge her for her lack of style. I remember my brother and I often giggled at my mother’s mispronunciation of certain words (“Shits” when she meant “Sheets”) as did Gabriella and her sister. I wish we hadn’t.

There are pieces in this collection which I could not have anticipated when I began this project, but which I am so glad came my way; David Licata’s “The Wolf is in the Kitchen,” Chris Wiewiora’s “M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I,” Sahar Mustafah’s “The Arabians,” and Mohja Kahf’s poem “My Grandmother Washes Her Feet in the Sink of the Bathroom at Sears” for example. All of which made me laugh out loud and left me feeling a deep endearment for the children they were and the families they came from. Tina Chang’s poem “The Shifting Kingdom” broke my heart in a million pieces and reminded me of the vast differences in the immigration experience my mother lived through and those being faced by families with far less resources and which often results in the lives of innocents along the way. Children trapped between the desperation of adult lives, politics, economics, conceptual borders, and the realization that a bright future may not be available to them on either side of that border.

―Tina Schumann/Editor