SOURCE: Proefriedt, William A. “The Immigrant or ‘Outsider’ Experience as Metaphor for Becoming an Educated Person in the Modern World: Mary Antin, Richard Wright, and Eva Hoffman.” MELUS 16, no. 2 (spring 1989): 77-89.

In the following essay, Proefriedt examines the educational aspects of the immigrant experience, focusing on the work of Hoffman, Mary Antin, and Richard Wright.

A great deal of thinking about educating people who move from one culture to another has gone on in this country in the twentieth century. At its best, this thinking has focused on the ways in which equality of opportunity could be enhanced for an immigrant population through educational means. At its very best, questions of cultural identity, and a concern with the value of the native culture of immigrants, have been included. At its worst, concerns with order and with a careless assimilation have occupied center stage.

In all of this, those...