6 - “The Accent of the Future”

Summary

This chapter makes the case that Willa Cather and Abraham Cahan present immigrant characters in their fiction as potentially powerful figures by virtue of their bi- and multilingualism. These, and other writers such as John Dos Passos, Mike Gold, and Anzia Yezierska, show that those who master English as well as the languages into which they are born are socially, geographically, artistically, and intellectually mobile figures. Such characters, in their codeswitching, exemplify a kind of linguistic mobility that is at the heart of ethnic American modernist literature, and that demonstrates pluralistic values that were often socially and politically absent in the period of their creation. These modernist writers look to language and the interpolation of foreign languages, whether through translational mimesis, codeswitching, or selective reproduction, as empowering. In doing so, they demonstrate the rich potential of an ethnic American literary modernism. The immigrant’s voice, with all its inflections and idiosyncrasies, is presented as the accent of the future.