Un travailleur immigré raconte ses aventures

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George Alagiah

"When the eleven-year-old George Alagiah was dropped off at a south coast boarding school back in 1967 he was confronted with an extreme version of the very private struggle faced by all immigrants - the battle to leave the past behind and fit into a new culture. A Home from Home is the story of Alagiah's journey from Asian boy to English man; from the homesick, diffident child who suppressed his tears to the household name he is today." "But, above all Home from Home is a portrayal of the immigrant experience. From a dawn visit to Billingsgate fish market with Helen, who came to Britain from St. Lucia in 1959, to a jasmine-scented Sri Lankan wedding ceremony in north London, Alagiah has brought colour and life to a subject that is all too often reduced to screaming tabloid headlines. And in discovering where he feels most at home, Alagiah sheds light on the increasingly controversial question of British identity."--BOOK JACKET.

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Bridget Connelly

"In 1880, at the height of Ireland's second famine, a ship of paupers was sent from Galway to take up land granted them by a Catholic bishop in Minnesota. There they encountered the worst winter in the state's history and nearly froze to death in unshingled shanties on the prairie. National and international newspapers featured their plight as the welfare scandal of the year, and priests and politicians traded accusations as to who was responsible. The immigrants were at last removed from the colony; their name became the town's shorthand for lying, drunken failures.". "By chance more than a century later, Bridget Connelly, who grew up in Graceville, discovers her Connemara past. As Connelly uncovers the deliberately suppressed history of her grandmother's emigration, she exposes an old scandal that surrounded the settling of the land around Graceville, one that pitted Masons, Protestants, Germans, and Yankees against Irish Catholics - and one that set lace-curtain Irish against the Connemara paupers. She also learns of an archbishop who was, according to farmer lore, "worse than Jesse James."" "In this compelling combination of history and memoir, Connelly tells stories of an epochal blizzard, a famous Irish bard, an infamous Irish woman pirate, feuding frontier communities, and an archbishop's questionable legacy. She also learns why her family tried so hard to forget Ireland."--BOOK JACKET.

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Hector Mc Donnell

This book reviews Irish exile between 1615 and 1820 through the descendants of Sorley Boy MacDonnell, a warrior-chieftain of the sixteenth century, and their associates. Part 1 covers the Spanish Netherlands. Captain Sorley, a nephew of Randall MacDonnell, the first Earl of Antrim, joined the O'Neill regiment in 1615. Involved in several invasion projects he also collected important bardic manuscripts. Two illegitimate sons of the first earl were also there: Daniel, a Franciscan at Louvain, and Maurice, a soldier involved in complex schemes concerning Scotland, Ireland and the Civil War. Part II follows a family in France. In 1688 the first of these, a naval captain, smuggled James II to France in a fishing boat; one somewhat dissolute son aided the exiled Duke of Ormonde in several abortive Jacobite attempts, and another was one of the seven men to accompany Prince Charles to Scotland in 1745. Part III covers 1710-1820 in Spain through the descendants of Daniel, an illegitimate son of the third Earl of Antrim. Randall, a general, campaigned in Italy and Morocco with his Irish regiments. His son, along with his friend Charles Wogan, tried to get their Irish Brigade to Scotland in 1745. Enrique Reynaldo, of the third generation, was an admiral who fought at Trafalgar and died a pauper. An epilogue follows the MacDonnells in Austria, from the assassin of Wallenstein to one who fought for the papacy against Garibaldi.

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Naama Sabar

"Under what circumstance would kibbutz-born young people leave a society which symbolizes, more than anything else, the Zionist dream? Naama Sabar explores this question by examining the lives of a group of Israeli emigrants living in Los Angeles in the 1980s and early 1990s. Through extensive interviews in which these "kibbutzniks" share their life stories, she uncovers what pushed them to leave the kibbutz and what pulls them to remain in L.A. The underlying leitmotif is the search for identity under changing conditions."--BOOK JACKET.