Page 29 - Immigrant Experience News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Reading Georges Perec’s prose poem“Ellis Island” (reissued this month in a slim, Statue-of-Liberty green edition courtesy of New Directions), I felt inspired to coin a word. A wee bit precious of me, I’ll admit — but then, as I may have mentioned already, I was reading a book by Georges Perec. This is the writer who spent the better part of his life tinkering with the alphabet like a child assembling Legos. Surely, I could be permitted one assemblage of my own. “Chusing” was the word I coined. Defining it would be very un-Perecian of me, but I’m prepared to live with that: chu...

Grant Program Gives Berkshire Organizations Shot in the Arm Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation announced in a press release Monday (Jan. 25) the distribution of over $48,000 through its Bridging Divides, Healing Communities grant program, a new initiative to support community-building activities aimed at strengthening relationships and trust at the local level, especially among people who hold different points of view or come from different backgrounds. Twenty-one organizations in four counties received grants of up to $2,500 for projects that seek to bring people together for the purpose...

Joan Micklin Silver, who died on Dec. 31 at age 85, proved that for American Jewish women, being a film director means facing challenges of assimilation not unlike those confronted by immigrant ancestors generations ago. Like the “Bintel Brief” Yiddish advice column in The Forverts, “Yekl,” like “Hester Street,” seethed with passions of Russian Jews trying to adapt to a new world. The low-budget informality and authenticity of “Hester Street,” much of it performed in Yiddish, was augmented by editing rhythms that recalled the silent movie era, as did the truly unearthly perfor...

Born to Russian Jewish parents in Omaha, Nebraska, Joan Micklin Silver launched her feature film career in 1975 with Hester Street, a film based on a short story by Abraham Cahan.  She wrote the screenplay as well as directing the film that portrays the Jewish-American immigrant experience and which served as a tribute to her parents and heritage.  Initially a music teacher and freelance writer in Cleveland, Ohio, Micklin Silver was inspired to work in film when she saw Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali (1955). When her family moved to New York City in 1967, she seized this opportunity and...

Joan Micklin Silver, the filmmaker behind "Hester Street" and "Crossing Delancey," has died at the age of 85.