The New Americans

This enthralling collection of companion essays to the upcoming PBS series on immigration explores a foundational aspect of the American identity. Martinez, a radio and TV commentator and author of Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail, looks at five recent immigrants whose circumstances and experiences vary widely: a relative of martyred Nigerian human rights activist Ken Saro-Wiwa making her way in Chicago; a Mexican migrant worker trying to bring his family across the border; two Dominican baseball players who stand out on a minor league team in Great Falls, Montana; an Indian computer programmer who moves to Silicon Valley on the eve of the dot-com crash; and a Palestinian woman, weary of the struggle on the West Bank, who marries a Palestinian-American man trying to connect with the intifada. Through their stories, his own reminiscences and additional pieces on immigrant cultural phenomena from filmmaker Mira Nair to the narco-corrido band Los Tigres del Norte, he explores the competing pull of New World modernity and freedom versus Old World tradition and community, the loneliness of strangers in a strange land, and the conflicting meanings that America holds for immigrants and that immigrants hold for America. Masterfully evoking such diverse settings as a Palestinian wedding in Chicago, a raucous ball game in Guatemala City and a torpid migrant trailer camp in California, Martinez's writing is clear-eyed and incisive--and sometimes heartbreaking and hilarious. Photos.