Dream Shibboleth

This article characterizes diaspora writing as a kind of dream writing, through the reading of two autobiographical works by Mary Antin (1881—1949), a Russian-Jewish immigrant to America. It dreams of the possibility of a `dream shibboleth', a password through which to bypass the law of the tribal shibboleths which condemn migrants to the border and the never-ending process of self-translation. It is the immigrants' wish to survive and make a home wherever they happen to land that makes their nightly adventure a scene of dream writing, in which the scars of border-crossing magically turn themselves into rich and nutritious seeds which aid their journey.