[2] In these novels, the immigrant experience often begins with a feeling of wild, open-ended adventure, as the protagonists make the move to the US and leave their previous homes halfway around the world.
Age at the time of arrival, family relationships, and economic status all interact to create a diverse genre of novel, dealing with types of questions such as when the immigrants behind to consider themselves American, and when parents and children will end up switching roles as the younger caretaker and the older, but the seemingly helpless beneficiary.
[3] The powerful mother is a common pivotal figure in immigrant fiction, just as the sensitive child, torn between this matriarchal authority and a weaker, less adaptive father, often assumes the book's central consciousness.
Silla is the archetypal strong Barbadian woman who will scrub floors, work day and night, and save every penny to own someday a piece of America, a brownstone house, even if it means crushing her husband's island-returning dreams in the process.
Many immigrant novels fit this Bildungsroman pattern of tracing the moral, psychological, and intellectual development of a youthful main character: The émigré group's inexperience in the new country and the young protagonist's viewpoint often dovetail neatly.