Lost in Translation

In Eva Hoffman's memoir, Lost in Translation, Eva writes about her experiences as a Polish immigrant who starts her life over in Canada. When the Hoffman's moved to Vancouver Eva was only fourteen. I liked the excerpt that our class read mostly because I could relate to it. When I was 13 my family was in the process of moving to Japan. We went to Tokyo and I enrolled in a middle school and we bought a house. A few weeks after we came back to New York a last minute decision was made that we would not actually be moving.

My experience was much different than Eva's in that she was facing a much more dire circumstance. In the 1950's, Poland had just come out of the second World War, and the communists were slowly taking power. The Hoffman's decided that the best thing for their family was to leave for Canada. Eva and I were in the same position; however, in that the decision to move was not ours. It was completely out of our hands.

I don't know what would have happened if I'd moved to Tokyo, but I do know I would have faced a lot of similar language barriers that Eva did. Even though Eva's story wasn't as traumatizing as Le Ly Hayslip's in When Heaven and Earth Changed Places, the style in which she writes makes her story incredibly interesting.

Because Eva has to learn English and somewhat abandon Polish, she becomes obsessed with language. It's strange to read her memoir, which is so well written, and have her re-count trying to understand English. Hoffman is able to completely change what could have been a boring story about an immigrant girl and makes it riveting just with her mastery of language.