A Letter from the Author

Our high school freshman English teacher, Mrs. Shaw, told us there were three reasons why people write books. The first reason, she said, was to make money. The second reason was to become famous. The third reason, she related, is because the author has something important to write about. That’s me. I saw a story that needed – that cried out – to be told.

The saga I felt compelled to tell was that of the bravery, the struggle and the sacrifice of immigrants who came to the United States a century ago.

I set the novel in Chicago’s Roaring Twenties and called it Cambridge Street after a thoroughfare in Little Sicily – a neighborhood called Little Hell by the local press.

The immigrants of whom I wrote came here for opportunity; for freedom; for the American Dream. They came to rear their families, to worship as they chose, to live in safety and harmony and to become Americans.

The tale of poor people who often faced incredible hardships and came here with just the change in their pockets is more compelling, more dramatic, more interesting, more exciting and more significant by far than anything Hollywood could create.

Imagine the utter impossibility and heartbreak of it: to leave a family and a home you love, travel thousands of miles to a land where you were not welcomed or wanted. You arrive  – can’t speak the language, have little money and are faced with prejudice in employment, in housing and in services. On top of that, your criminal countrymen often extort money and steal from you.

While it is fiction, Cambridge Street is the story of the millions who came to the United States from around the globe seeking to become Americans.

It is likely the story of an ancestor of yours.