The Chosen Shore: Stories of Immigrants

By Ellen Alexander Conley and Conley

Book Overview

A Korean street child is adopted into an upper-middle-class suburban home. A Vietnamese monk dishes up fast food to fund a spiritual center. A woman saves for a home back in Ghana, where she will never live. All are immigrants to the United States, known to most of their fellow Americans only as statistics. The stories that statistics can't tell unfold in this book, in which twenty-three recent immigrants recall navigating the paradoxes, pitfalls, and triumphs of becoming Americans. Candid, evocative, and richly detailed, their oral histories comprise a compelling portrait of the changing face of the American population.

In venues from the San Francisco Chronicle to the New York Times, Ellen Alexander Conley's fiction has been hailed as "wonderful," "impassioned," and "memorable." Conley brings the same passion and skill to her depiction of our nation's most recent arrivals. These personal histories, along with Conley's thoughtful overview of literature on immigration, give us a firsthand sense of what it means to become an American.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520239881
• ISBN13: 9780520239883
• Release Date: September 2004
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 283 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.9" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

This is a must read

I love it when I get find a book that I can't stop reading, and this is one of them. Each chapter is as good as the last and Ms. Conley writes in such a way that you feel as if you are right there with the subjects. I was especially moved by Tommy, the Korean street child. No two characters are the same and this book really opened my eyes to the everyday struggle of immigrants in this country. Go get it!!!

Poignant and compelling

Ms. Conley's collection of stories offers a vivid insight into the lives and experiences of recent immigrants into the US. As a recent immigrant, I found I could identify with many of the experiences and feelings lived by the actors in this book. I felt like finally someone had given voice to my own emotions. I strongly recommend this to anyone who wishes to understand the plight and struggles of immigrants into contemporary America.

Can't put it down...

These stories are addictive in their drama and passion. Each time you wonder how the next chapter can match up to the last one, you are surprised by the poignancy of the voices of these immigrants, which Conley preserves in their original forms. You can almost smell the herbs and cheeses from the various corners of the world from which her subjects hail. Required reading for any citizen of our now-globalized society.