{"id":3322,"date":"2014-11-12T07:18:47","date_gmt":"2014-11-12T12:18:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=3322"},"modified":"2014-11-12T07:18:47","modified_gmt":"2014-11-12T12:18:47","slug":"glimmer-train-fall-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=3322","title":{"rendered":"****Glimmer Train \u2013 Fall 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Jewish<\/a>

(photo: by Sagie, Creative Commons license)<\/p><\/div>\n

Glimmer Train<\/em> doesn\u2019t usually announce theme issues, except for the \u201cFamily Matters\u201d issue, but a clear current in the 11 short stories in this issue is the desires and dislocations of immigrants and the desperation of those who want to immigrate. This is also the issue that includes the wonderful interview with Junot Diaz, covered in part by the First Draft blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The frustrations of would-be immigrants are explored in the story \u201cStowaways,\u201d by Joseph Chavez, in which a man falls from the sky; in the poignant story \u201cHialeah\u201d by Kim Brooks, about a gathering of Jewish men in Miami, strategizing how to convince the Roosevelt Administration to let a boatload of Jewish refugees land (you\u2019ll remember this real-life episode of the SS Exodus 1947<\/em>), and \u201cMaghreb and the Sea,\u201d by Robert Powers, which takes on the voice of a would-be African immigrant facing impossible hurdles trying to get to Europe, America\u2014away. Told without dialog, it has the genuine feel of writing from that part of the world.<\/p>\n

Other stories tell the trials and uncertainties of people newly in America and the pull of \u201chome.\u201d As author Mehdi Tavana Okasi says in his biosketch, his mother is convinced that, in Iran, he would have become a doctor. \u201cPerhaps she is right. But there is no way to know the other scars I would bear. These are questions that can never be answered, and as immigrants, our lives are filled with them, the what ifs<\/em> and if only I hads<\/em>. It\u2019s fantastical and dangerous.\u201d And, thus, the stuff of fiction.<\/p>\n

The wide-ranging interview with Junot Diaz also touches on immigration, in his case between the Dominican Republic and the United States. Of the two countries, he says \u201ctheir shadows fall on each other.\u201d He finds it a useful metaphor because, \u201call of us are haunted by the other world we call our past.\u201d The immigrant can double down on that haunting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Glimmer Train doesn\u2019t usually announce theme issues, except for the \u201cFamily Matters\u201d issue, but a clear current in the 11 short stories in this issue is the desires and dislocations of immigrants and the desperation of those who want to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"****Glimmer Train \u2013 Fall 2014 - the dislocations of the immigrant experience","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[40,126,120],"tags":[98],"class_list":["post-3322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reading-2","category-short-story","tag-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-RA","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3322"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3323,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3322\/revisions\/3323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}