The reading for today is a passage from The Promised Land by Mary Antin. Antin is an immigrant to the U.S. from Russia and this story tells about some of her first thoughts and experience about the story. I find it interesting that this story may come off as a pro America writing, but it can also be read as a testament to the racism in the country at the time.
Also Antin presents a very touching scene between her sister and herself and how her sister was the one chosen to work while Antin was the one chosen to go to school. I think this scene is important, because it adds a dose of reality to the American dream as Antin discovers that an education may be the only way an immigrant can progress in life; but a free education is not always obtainable by all. This story contains many subtext that can be extracted though close reading such as the slum conditions Antin had to live in, the lost of identity she may have had to sustain, the racism of the citizen, and her disagreements about religion and what it meant for her father.
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