Two million Jews emigrated to the United States from Eastern Europe between 1890-1920. The large majority passed through Ellis Island and settled in the Lower East Side of New York City. They struggled to create a new life for themselves—among the tenements, inside the sweatshops, behind the pushcarts—as they dreamed and worked for a more just and compassionate world.

Pushcarts and Dreams is a collection of Yiddish stories written in the United States by authors who were themselves part of this immigrant scene. Life here was hard for those newcomers, but they made it more bearable by their determined striving to improve it. The grimness and the privation were characteristically leavened by large doses of hope, irony, and humor.