{"id":126842,"date":"2018-06-26T13:00:59","date_gmt":"2018-06-26T17:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=126842"},"modified":"2018-06-26T13:24:25","modified_gmt":"2018-06-26T17:24:25","slug":"redux-in-dire-straits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/06\/26\/redux-in-dire-straits\/","title":{"rendered":"Redux: In Dire Straits"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This week, we bring you three pieces about immigration from our archive. Read\u00a0Dany Laferri\u00e8re<\/a>\u2019s 2017 Writers at Work interview, in which he\u00a0bemoans complacency in the face of suffering; meet the narrator from a war-torn country in Gretchen Herbkersman\u2019s short story \u201cThor<\/a>\u201d; and travel to impoverished Detroit, the city in which the American immigrant dream once lay, in Philip Levine\u2019s poem \u201cA Walk with Tom Jefferson<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dany Laferri\u00e8re, The Art of Fiction No. 237<\/a>
\nIssue no. 222 (Fall 2017)<\/em><\/p>\n

To watch someone see you, when you are begging or homeless, and the person isn\u2019t scandalized. He\u2019s not happy about it, but he is thinking if someone has to be homeless, it might as well be you. If you saw that someone you went to school with had become homeless, you would be scandalized. You\u2019d say to yourself, It can\u2019t possibly be! But for all the others who are homeless, it can\u2019t possibly be either! But it\u2019s like that when you don\u2019t know the person\u2014you are categorized by race, or as a part of society that we accept seeing in a miserable situation. Native Americans drinking on a street corner or blacks in dire circumstances\u2014these are things society thinks are normal. I\u2019m not saying they accept it, but it\u2019s something they\u2019ve always seen. Well, I\u2019ve been in that situation. I\u2019ve been seen that way\u2014He\u2019s an immigrant and not white, and he\u2019s in dire straits, that\u2019s normal. There is nothing more extraordinary than seeing compassion in someone\u2019s eyes, but not the slightest surprise at your situation. That is what it is to be a desert island, with no one to protect you\u2014which could plunge some people into despair, bordering on insanity. But for a writer, it can be interesting. Because you can observe society, since you are completely invisible. No one sees you. People will say and do anything in front of you.<\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Jacob Lawrence, The migrants arrived in great numbers<\/em>, from the Migration series, 1940\u201341.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Thor<\/a>
\nBy Gretchen Herbkersman
\nIssue no. 62 (Summer 1975)<\/em><\/p>\n

We are used to war in this country. I mean, we are used by war, as wood is used by flame. Trees have no knowledge of fire in their inner parts until the forest is ablaze, or until they are cut into kindling. I cannot imagine that one gets used to combat or that trees accustom themselves to burning.<\/p>\n

I say \u201cwe\u201d as if I were a native, but I was then and am still a registered alien. Nearly everyone here is foreign, immigrant, here because they\u2019re starved for land and space in which to breathe\u2014but in wartime the air is thick with the smell of chemicals and the dust of blasted buildings, and all the land one can claim, even temporarily, is that\u00a0on which he stands or lies.<\/p>\n

I am as foreign as the ones who drop the bombs. I came here, as the invaders say they come, looking for peace. Yet I could never get it into my head to move away from this crowded city which is always the first hit, giving the rest of the country time to mobilize and start sending supplies\u2014blood, drugs, food, young people. This is a city which is always being rebuilt after the last raid. Of course it is never rebuilt.<\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A Walk with Tom Jefferson<\/a>
\nBy Philip Levine
\nIssue no. 104\u00a0(Fall 1987)<\/em><\/p>\n

Between the freeway
\nand the gray conning towers
\nof the ballpark, miles
\nof mostly vacant lots, once
\na neighborhood of small
\ntwo-storey wooden houses\u2014
\ndwellings for immigrants
\nfrom Ireland, Germany,
\nPoland, West Virginia,
\nMexico, Dodge Main.
\nA little world with only
\nthree seasons, or so we said\u2014
\none to get tired, one to get
\nold, one to die \u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  This week, we bring you three pieces about immigration from our archive. Read\u00a0Dany Laferri\u00e8re\u2019s 2017 Writers at Work interview, in which he\u00a0bemoans complacency in the face of suffering; meet the narrator from a war-torn country in Gretchen Herbkersman\u2019s short story \u201cThor\u201d; and travel to impoverished Detroit, the city in which the American immigrant dream […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31006],"tags":[34476,30418,34474,34475],"class_list":["post-126842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-redux","tag-a-walk-with-tom-jefferson","tag-dany-laferriere","tag-gretchen-herbkersman","tag-thor"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRedux: In Dire Straits by The Paris Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This week, we bring you three pieces about immigration from our archive.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/06\/26\/redux-in-dire-straits\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Redux: In Dire Straits by The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"June 26, 2018 \u2013   This week, we bring you three pieces about immigration from our archive. 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