The Promised Land Summary

Mary Antin’s book The Promised Land is an autobiography of her experience of immigrating to America with her family when she was a young girl. She and her family were immigrants from Polotsk Belarus part at the time part of the Russian empire. Her story starts when her family arrived in Boston for the first time. The autobiography became a best seller in the United States at the time because of the books insight into immigrant life, the national pride that American’s would feel after reading the stories in the book, and the relatable life that Mary Antin lived. This book was popular with native born Americans because it had an in-depth insight to life as a young immigrant. Antin was able to write a story that was able give perspective to the American public on life as an immigrant by talking about things that native born American’s never thought about. For example Antin writes about how she and the members of the family got their new American names. The experience was just a group of friends that have lived in the country for some time got together to discuss what their American names would be based off of their current names. It’s a unique experience to an immigrant to get a new name and many natives wouldn’t identify with this experience. This along with other experiences like talking about all of the steps they take to become Americanized …show more content…
In the book Antin Writes about how great everything in America from the buildings, to clothing, and the schooling system everything was better than her home country. This constant praise of the country makes people feel a national pride and helped popularize the book because it made people feel good. The constant praise for the country also gave this book a unique tone instead of talking about how hard things may be at the moment Antin is constantly looking forward to the opportunity that is in front of