Today is my 27th birthday. I sat early this morning reading, from a book called Jewish Grandmothers. I came across a passage that I would like to share.

...I had dreamed of free schools, free colleges, where I could learn to give out my innermost thoughts and feelings to the world. But no sooner did I come off the ship than hunger drove me to the sweat-shop, to become a "hand" - not a brain - not a soul - not a spirit - but just a "hand" - cramped, deadened into a part of a machine. A hand fit only to grasp, not to give.

-Anzia Yezierska, Children of Loneliness