The Last Chicken in America by Ellen Litman

I grew up cherishing the idea of my ancestors having migrated here from Poland. Those around me never could furnish me with much in the way of details, or if they could, weren't really interested in doing so. Some probably just didn't think it was all that important a fact or story. Or, it was something they didn't want to remember or have remembered. They were American. Period. Perhaps in compensation, I've always been drawn to fiction that is focused on the experience.

Ellen Litman's Last Chicken in America linked set of short stories captures the experience of Russian Jews who come to a particular Pittsburgh neighborhood (Squirrel Hill) in the nineties. It provides vivid and carefully drawn detail on the emotional and psychological costs incurred by the move. Folks with all sorts of educational and occupational attainments back home are forced to work menial jobs. Isolated by language and culture from the larger world of their new home, they are often forced to rely on an all too small circle of other immigrants for companionship and help. Parents find themselves dependent on children for acts of simple survival and grown resentful as their children fell smothered. Often reading of all these costs, you wonder. Was it worth it?

Of course, the move wasn't always much of a choice. Many of the characters are Jewish and are fleeing. However, many of the characters seem to find their new home equal parts surprisse and disappointment. Their move has had effects they didn't anticipate. One character, lamenting the failed marriage of one set of friends and the hasty May-December marriage of another, remarks to her husband, "What is America doing to us Seryozha?" Seryozha replies, "Its not America. Its them."

Beyond immigration, Litman explores the pressures and attractions of assimilation. Several stories are Masha's, an ambitious, only daughter who looks to flee the conservative, gloomy mindset of her parents but fears she will never be American. As she puts it: "I watched CNN, I ate out, I read American books. But I lacked their boldness and fluency, their flippant resistance to gloom. My father said I'd never be quite like them."

Masha's thumbnail above of America is one of the appeals of immigrant lit. It always provides a mirror. However, these stories are better than that. They speak to universals. In a number of different ways, Litman's immigrants are folks who are negotiating common transfers. They are growing old. They are moving from childhood to adulthood. They are attempting to find their place in new marriages. Unless you're odd, you will see yourself. And, Litman's accounts are infused with compassion.