Bread Givers -- America gives nothing, not even opportunity freely, without demanding something in exchange

America is the land of the free, in its political theory and its popular rhetoric. Yet in the harsh realities of American capitalism, especially for recent immigrants with few social support networks, there is no such thing as a 'free lunch.' In other words, no one gains anything without sacrifice, in America -- one must sacrifice in financial terms, but also in terms of personal and cultural power and currency. Anzia Yezierska depicts this in the chronicles of the Smolinsky family in her novel The Bread Givers. The main focus of the novel is a family, the Smolinksys, whom have come to the America of 1930's East Side Manhattan in search of opportunity and freedom of persecution. But the Orthodox Rabbi who leads the clan is unwilling to give up his old European economic ways...
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