Going Mad in America: Immigrant Writers and Narratives of Insanity

This essay examines immigrants' experiences with insanity in early twentieth-century America and discusses the ways in which their narratives of pain and suffering have contributed to our understandings of immigration, illness, and Americanization. Due to the lack of historical sources that shed light on how immigrants dealt with their insanity, or mental illness in general, it employs fictional and autobiographical narratives of insanity by early immigrant writers, including O. E. Rølvaag, Sui Sin Far, and William Saroyan. While Americans often viewed insanity as a result of failed adaptation, these immigrant authors' narratives and characters with insanity showed that immigrants, despite facing emotional difficulties, possible deportations, and other legal actions, managed to negotiate their new lives and construct unique paths to becoming American. Through their encounter with insanity, the mad characters found a sense of place in the New World, where they would build a life for themselves and their family members. Compared to more recent ethnic writings, the narratives of insanity in the first half of the twentieth century were limited in that they conceded to the hegemonic American imagining of the "Other" and rarely subverted or resisted the classic narrative of assimilation and Americanization. They offered, however, divergent representations of immigrant pain and suffering, which were not merely a step to achieve American norms of success but also a means to cope with their alternative notions of madness and sense of reality. For them, insanity was neither a failure in itself nor proof of failed assimilation; rather, it was a "justified and reasonable" response to American civilization.