The Shoestring Letters - A Tribute to the Immigrant

Kierkegaard said: “To venture causes anxiety, but not to venture is to lose oneself.” This is an account of Danish immigrants who took that risk, embracing America to satisfy the inner cry which Isak Dinesen voiced: “Give me a chance to do my very best.” More than a tale of one family’s struggle, the greater immigrant community’s wartime military service is recalled and the way Danes across America vigorously joined hands for their homeland’s postwar restoration. Unforgettable is the photo of a defeated war machine slinking back to Germany after Denmark gloriously defied Hitler, rescuing thousands of Jews from deportation to death camps. This book is a celebration of the culture, religious faith, and grit, which sustained Danes through generations of economic upheaval, wars, and migration. It concludes with one immigrant’s touching salute to all who ventured from their homeland to become Americans, and his rendition, in verse, of Hans Christian Andersen’s “Tin Soldier.”