From Publishers Weekly
This enthralling collection of companion essays to the upcoming PBS series on immigration explores a foundational aspect of the American identity. Martínez, a radio and TV commentator and author of Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail, looks at five recent immigrants whose circumstances and experiences vary widely: a relative of martyred Nigerian human rights activist Ken Saro-Wiwa making her way in Chicago; a Mexican migrant worker trying to bring his family across the border; two Dominican baseball players who stand out on a minor league team in Great Falls, Montana; an Indian computer programmer who moves to Silicon Valley on the eve of the dot-com crash; and a Palestinian woman, weary of the struggle on the West Bank, who marries a Palestinian-American man trying to connect with the intifada. Through their stories, his own reminiscences and additional pieces on immigrant cultural phenomena from filmmaker Mira Nair to the narco-corrido band Los Tigres del Norte, he explores the competing pull of New World modernity and freedom versus Old World tradition and community, the loneliness of strangers in a strange land, and the conflicting meanings that America holds for immigrants and that immigrants hold for America. Masterfully evoking such diverse settings as a Palestinian wedding in Chicago, a raucous ball game in Guatemala City and a torpid migrant trailer camp in California, Martínez’s writing is clear-eyed and incisive—and sometimes heartbreaking and hilarious. Photos. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Emmy Award-winning Martinez has penned five powerful and perceptive immigrant portraits to accompany an upcoming PBS miniseries, and each one forces the reader to look beyond his or her own small world. Martinez follows five individuals or groups in their search for acceptance in the U.S.--a Palestinian woman escaping the hopelessness of her nonexistent state; refugees from the Nigerian military regime; two Dominican baseball players on a single-A team in Great Falls, Montana; an extended Mexican family (two sisters, one husband, and 10 kids) all living in a trailer and working the fields near a California aqueduct; and an Indian computer programmer who experiences both boom and bust in Silicon Valley. Martinez uses their stories to demonstrate the universality of the immigrant experience, skillfully tying them together with essays on the emerging immigrant pop culture. His concluding discussion of the dichotomies inherent in the immigration debate--manifest by the average U.S. citizen who enjoys ethnic food, then engages in post-9/11 racial profiling--is both challenging and thought provoking. Deborah Donovan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Mike Davis
Martínez writes with moral clarity and razor-sharp wit.
Book Description
The absorbing globe-spanning journeys of five immigrant families, chronicled by an award-winning journalist. In The New Americans, a companion book to the highly-anticipated PBS miniseries from the award-winning producers and director of Hoop Dreams, Emmy Award-winning journalist Rubén Martínez recounts the dramatic voyages of five new immigrant families, from home country to arrival and settlement in the United States. The detailed portraits—woven together in the miniseries to present a kaleidoscopic picture of immigrant movement—present a personal view of the new America: we follow an Indian couple to Silicon Valley, a Mexican family to a meatpacking plant in Kansas; a family of Nigerian refugees, including the sister of slain Ogoni activist Ken Saro-Wiwa; two LA Dodgers prospects from the Dominican Republic; and a pair of Palestinian newlyweds carving out a life in Chicago. The book also provides context for fans of the television series, with stunning original photographs from award-winning photojournalist Joseph Rodríguez. The New Americans is at once the most personal and accessible introduction to the experience of a new generation of immigrants, and a beautifully written meditation on the ways newcomers are transforming America, socially, economically, and culturally. 50 duotone photographs.
About the Author
Rubén Martínez is the author of Crossing Over, The Other Side, and other books. He is an associate editor at Pacific News Service and a regular commentator on radio and television. He lives in Joshua Tree, California. Joseph Rodríguez is an award-winning photographer whose work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Life, the Village Voice, Vibe, and Sí.
The New Americans FROM THE PUBLISHER
Emmy award -- winning writer Ruben Martinez here recounts the dramatic journeys of seven new immigrant families, from their home countries to their arrival and settling in the United States. The stories of their voyages are lovingly pieced together to form a kaleidoscope of the immigrant experience, and provide a startling new take on the continuing regeneration of a multicultural America. In these pages we follow a South Asian couple from the computer industry of Bangalore, India, to a small software start-up in Silicon Valley; a Mexican family who travels to work in the meatpacking plants of Garden City, Kansas, before relocating again to a trailer park in the California badlands; two families of Nigerian refugees, including the sister of slain Ogoni activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who moves from running a cooking school in Africa to holding down three simultaneous jobs chopping vegetables in Chicago restaurants; two L.A. Dodgers prospects who journey from the team's overseas training facility at Campo Las Palmas in the Dominican Republic to a minor league team in Great Falls, Montana; and a Palestinian American who travels to the Middle East and brings a new wife back to Chicago.
Alongside these elegiac stories are vignettes of artists who themselves work in the interstices of exile and relocation: forays, for instance, into the poetry of Palestinian Mahmoud Darwish, the films of the Indian American director Mira Nair, and the contemporary corridos of Mexican border musicians Los Tigres del Norte. Throughout, Martinez combines his own immigrant family's moving story with keen analyses of American policies and attitudes toward newcomers, past and present. His text is accompanied by powerful images from renowned photojournalist Joseph Rodriguez. The New Americans is at once a personal and accessible introduction to the experience of a new generation of immigrants, and a beautifully written meditation on the ways they are transforming today's America.
SYNOPSIS
In this companion to the PBS television series of the same name, Martínez (creative writing, U. of Houston) narrates the journeys of recent American immigrant families from Palestine, Nigeria, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and India, offering a portrait of the United States' new multicultural landscape. In addition to these intimate sketches of exile and relocation, he provides briefer vignettes of more famous figures dealing with the similar issues, such as Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, Nigerian political activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, and Indian filmmaker Mira Nair. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
FROM THE CRITICS
Library Journal
Although an increasing volume of research is being done to document an immigrant population of unprecedented size and diversity in the United States, the story of most of these newcomers remains untold. An accomplished author and journalist and himself the son of Mexican and Salvadoran immigrants, Martinez (creative writing, Univ. of Houston; Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail) does much to remedy our ignorance. This book, a companion to a PBS miniseries, details the lives of seven families who have recently arrived in the United States from the West Bank, Nigeria, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and India. Some of them occupy the bottom rungs of society, while others are middle-class professionals, but all of them experience a sense of inner conflict between the Old World and the New. Martinez sympathetically tells the story of each while at the same time maintaining the objectivity of a journalist. Though he occasionally reflects upon his own experiences, Martinez generally succeeds in making the book about his subjects rather than himself. He does not offer much in the way of policy recommendations other than to advocate a more compassionate approach to the "problem" of immigration. Well illustrated with images by photojournalist Rodriguez, this book is recommended for school, public, and academic libraries.-David A. Timko, U.S. Census Bureau Lib., Washington, DC Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Art & Photography
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