America and I

Throughout her first-person writing, author Yezierska uses colloquialisms to make her words distinctive, often peppering the dialogue with exclamations such as “Ach” and “Gottuniu” (“Dear God” in Russian), along with variations on “Oi weh” (a Yiddish expression and variation of “Oy vey”). This type of interjection emphasizes her otherness in multiple languages with a varied background, stressing her identity as a foreigner who is not fully assimilated into American culture. It also adds emotional intensity and heightens the immersive effect, helping contemporary readers better understand the world she comes from. 

It is worth nothing here that critics have found Yezierska’s language to be sentimental and perhaps emotionally exaggerated; however, others have pointed out that Jewish women were traditionally expected to act that way, and the overwrought language may have been deliberately used to highlight the attitudes of white Americans who thought of immigrants as inferior and undisciplined people. In any case, she certainly uses an emotionally expressive tone throughout her writing, which can be seen in phrases such as “I was so choked no words came to my lips” (37) and “I flamed up with all that was choking in me like a house on fire” (93).