Memories: Journey into an Immigrant’S Mind

Book excerpt: As its title powerfully suggests, this bookwhile being a personal memoir, a narration of ones life journey from sunrise to sunsettranscends the personal. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that these memories are the memories of an immigrant who has lived in the country as a US citizen (with an American-born father) for some sixty years. It is much more than a list of events and anecdotes of an immigrant experience. It is written in a Dantesque and Vichian spirit, and as such, it goes beyond the listing of historical events and people. More than a physical journey, it is an intellectual journey into the mind of an immigrant in search of ones self and ones ethnic identity. As such, it is a universal journey with which nonimmigrants, even native-born, can easily emphatize. Our common humanity makes it universal. As Dante well put it when he began the narration of his lifes journey, In the middle of the journey of our lives, I found myself in a dark wood. As Dante begins the journey guided by Virgil and Breatrice, he finds out that indeed the journey is universal beyond the purely personal. As Michelangelo said, Ancor imparo [I am still learning]. He uttered such a statement at the venerable age of eighty-nine, a few days before he died. He was still sculpting and learning. Likewise, if we dare to begin the journey, at whatever age we may find ourselves, we may soon find out that we too are still learning, and the journey may well have a common purpose and destination.