Anzia Yezierska and the Identity Crisis in Jewish-American Literature

Religious and racial identities are being reconceived as responses to cultural environments. Many Jews continue to hold conflicting ideas about their identity. We will trace the realities and challenges of being Jewish in the USA through Anzia Yezierska’s “The Lost Beautifulness.” The short story demonstrates the failure of Americanization and the need for a hybrid identity for Jewish-American immigrants to solve their identity crisis in the American context. The main character uses the white paint for the kitchen as a symbolic path towards assimilating American concepts of whiteness, cleanliness, and beauty, apparently making her equal to and accepted by the American mainstream middle and upper-class population.