Abstract:

During graduate school, I spent a semester studying Hungarian literature; I realized then that a European literature was not my own literary heritage. My literature was that of the American experience. Thus, I began to research Hungarian immigrants in central New Jersey. This research resulted in The Other Sister, published in November 2008. This paper details the research process, and more importantly, the process of discovery that led me to better understand the stories of Hungarian immigrants, and how the forces that shaped the lives of these travelers in their new country shaped my own heritage—culinary and literary.

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