Immigrant Voices Reading List
Fiction/Memoirs/Literary Collections (by Ethnicity)
Afghani
Arab
Bangladeshi
Bosnian
Bulgarian
Cambodian
Chinese
Colombian
Cuban
Czech
Dominican
East Indian
Ethiopian
Filipino
Finnish
French
German
Greek
Guatemalan
Haitian
Hmong
Hungarian
Indian
Iraqi
Iranian
Irish
Italian
Japanese
Jewish
Jordanian
Korean
Lebanese
Mexican
Nigerian
Norwegian
Pakistani
Palestinian
Polish
Puerto Rican
Russian
Salvadoran
Scottish
Slovak
Sri Lankan
Sudanese
Swedish
Taiwanese
Togolese
Vietnamese
Welsh
West Indian
Yemeni
Literary Collections (Short Stories, Plays, Poems, Overviews, etc.)
Asians
Hispanics
Various Cultures
Sources for Research by Topic
Business
Mass Media
Politics
Sports
Afghani – Novels/Memoirs
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Ansary, Tamim. West of Kabul, East of New York: An Afghan American Story. Ansary, who was
raised in Afghanistan, the son of an exemplar of that nation's civil elite and of an American his father
met while studying abroad, moved to the United States in time to live out college and urban cool in
the Sixties and Seventies. But this Afghan American, writing in response to 9/11 and in fact
extending to book-length some of the notions he posited in a widely read e-mail on September 12,
2001, tells truths about dislocation, heritage, home, family, and religion that both affirm life and
profoundly sadden. Ansary's account of how his brother chose to stay "east of New York," of his
travels through Muslim communities at the time of the Iranian hostage crisis, and of his personal
collision with conspiracy theory are particularly unsettling and worth any reader's time.
Aseel, Maryam. Torn Between Two Cultures: an Afghan-American Woman Speaks Out. The clash
between two cultures led a young Maryam through an identity crisis that was resolved only as she
rediscovered her religious and cultural roots, became increasingly active in the Afghan and Muslim
communities, and resolved to bridge the gap between her two dueling cultures. The resolution she
has achieved in her own life serves as a paradigm to the larger issue of East-West relations and our
future together.
Stine, Catherine. Refugees. Dawn is a runaway from California headed for New York City. Johar, 15,
is from Afghanistan, but flees to a refugee camp near Pakistan where Dawn's foster mother is a Red
Cross doctor. After September 11, their lives take a different path that leads them to develop an
email friendship that forms a bond and helps them discover their own strengths.
Arab Novels/Memoirs
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Abu-Japer, Diana. Crescent: a novel. Thirty-nine-year-old Sirine, never married, lives with a devoted
Iraqi-immigrant uncle and an adoring dog named King Babar. She works as a chef in a Lebanese
restaurant, her passions aroused only by the preparation of food—until an unbearably handsome
Arabic literature professor starts dropping by for a little home cooking. Falling in love brings Sirene's
whole heart to a boil—stirring up memories of her parents and questions about her identity as an
Arab American
Abu-Japer, Diana. Arabian Jazz. Jordanian immigrant Matussem Ramoud and his two daughters live
in a poor, mostly white town in upstate New York, where "ethnics" are few and far between, in this
story about the individual search for self and for home.
Hanania, Ray. I'm Glad I Look Like a Terrorist: Growing Up Arab in America. Arab American activist,
speaker on issues of racial profiling, discrimination and ethnicity.
Arab Short Stories, Plays, Poems, Overviews, etc.
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Geha, Joseph. Through and Through: Short Stories about Arab Americans.
Hall, Loretta, editor. Arab American Voices. Twenty primary source documents from speeches,
memoirs, poems, novels, and autobiographies present the words of Americans with roots in
Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Egypt, and other Arab nations.
Kadi, Joanna, editor. Food for Our Grandmothers: Writings by Arab-American and Arab-Canadian
Feminists.
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Malek, Alia. A Country Called Amreeka: Arab Roots, American Stories. The U.S. has long lauded
itself as a nation of immigrants, but some communities have had considerable difficulty weaving
themselves into the American tapestry, notably, Arab-Americans. In this superb snapshot of the
Americans of Arab-speaking descent, individuals with roots in Jordan, Yemen, the Palestinian
territories and Lebanon share their stories and demonstrate the extent to which, even as they play
football, work assembly lines and hold public office, they remain shut out of the national narrative.
With a remarkable ability to capture her subjects' voices, Malek, a Syrian-American civil rights
lawyer, sketches illuminating responses to her question: What does American history look and feel
like in the eyes and skin of Arab Americans? There's the Lebanese-American, too dark for 1960s
Birmingham; the Palestinian-American surrounded by anti-Arab violence during the Iranian hostage
crisis; the Yemeni-American deployed to Iraq with the Marine Corps. In her effort to demonstrate
the impact of foreign affairs on American soil, Malek focuses too heavily on the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, giving short shrift to other important stories of upheaval, but this is an excellent book, one
certain to put right some of the wrongs it catalogues. (from Publishers Weekly)
Bangaledeshi - Novels/Memoirs
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Budhos, Marina. Ask Me No Questions. Fourteen-year-old Nadira, her sister, and their parents leave
Bangladesh for New York City, but the expiration of their visas and the events of September 11,
2001, bring frustration, sorrow, and terror for the whole family.
Bosnian - Novels/Memoirs
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Hemon, Aleksander. Nowhere Man. Hemon follows his galvanizing debut, The Question of Bruno
(2000), a set of interlocking stories, with his first novel, which continues the story of the phoenixlike
Jozef Pronek. As suggested by its evocative title, this episodic tale combines a tender musicality and
somewhat sardonic affection for humanity with piercing insights into the sorrows of displacement
and alienation. Hemon, himself an inadvertent Bosnian refugee, conjures his lost city of Sarajevo in
vivid depictions of Jozef's Sarajevan youth, during which he copes with the longings and
bewilderment of adolescence by forming a Beatles cover band. Jozef's passion for music brings him
to the U.S. just as war breaks out in Yugoslavia, and he finds himself marooned in Chicago. As he has
his stubborn hero struggle to find common ground with his father at home, then with oblivious
Americans as he takes odds jobs, including canvasing for Greenpeace in Chicago's insular suburbs,
where his accent attracts more interest than environmental concerns, Hemon, who possesses a
diabolical sense of humor and a wickedly visceral sensibility, and who handles English as though it
were nitroglycerine, considers the precariousness of existence, the continual revision of identity and
dreams that immigrant life demands, and the ever-present shadow of death. (from Booklist)
Bulgarian - Novels/Memoirs
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Yankoff, Peter D. Peter Menikoff. Autobiography of Dr. Peter Yankoff, who emigrated from
Bulgaria to the United States in the early 20th century.
Cambodian - Novels/Memoirs
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Ho, Mingfo. Stone Goddess. When Sophy and her older siblings are ripped away from their
family by the cruel Khmer Rouge and sent to work in a children's labor camp, Sophy bears
witness to innumerable tragedies, paying too dear a price. After the Vietnamese army liberates
Cambodia, Sophy returns to her mother's village, where they decide to seek refuge in America.
Upon arriving in America, Sophy struggles to adjust to life in a completely new and different
society, but she is caught up in the memories of all that she left behind.
Schmidt, Gary. Trouble. Henry's family is successful and wealthy. That world shatters when
Franklin, Henry's older brother is hit by a truck belonging to Chay Chouan, the son of a
Cambodian refugee. Flurries of violence erupt as fellow lacrosse players vent their rage on the
Cambodian community, and Henry begins to question how his brother also used to bully the
immigrants before the accident. Henry decides that he needs to follow through on a plan that
Franklin used to taunt him with, climbing a dangerous mountain as a rite of passage into
Franklin's kind of macho manhood. Henry's version of the plan, though, leads to forgiveness as
he hitches a ride with Chay of all people, and he learns secrets about his brother, his sister, and
Chay that lead him to question the kind of person he wants to be. The author reveals the
character of Chay, child of a violent refugee camp, unwanted product of rape, lover of poetry,
and protector of Henry's sister (in a Romeo-and-Juliet twist). Schmidt creates a rich and credible
world peopled with fully developed characters who have a lot of complex reasoning to do,
confronting issues of white privilege and responsibility for racial reconciliation and acceptance.
Chinese – Novels/Memoirs
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Chang, Lan Samantha. Inheritance. A complicated sister bond echoes through generations in
this novel. In China in the early 1930s, sisters Junan and Yinan are inseparable, even as Junan
matures into beauty and Yinan remains awkward and plain. Junan enters into an arranged
marriage and falls in love with Li Ang, her soldier husband. Separated from him when the
Japanese invade China, Junan sends the unmarried Yinan to keep her husband's household.
What is intended as an arrangement of convenience turns to betrayal when Li Ang and Yinan
have an affair. As China is divided by communism, the family is also rent in two. Junan and her
daughters Hong (who is also the narrator) and Hwa end up in the States, while Yinan and Li Ang
remain in mainland China with their son and are effectively banished from memory.
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Chang, Leslie. Beyond the Narrow Gate: the Journey of Four Chinese Women from the Middle
Kingdom to Middle America. The author tells the intertwining stories of her mother and three
classmates who, having already left China for Taiwan in the wake of the invasion of the Red
Army, immigrated to the U.S. in the 1950s and 1960s.
Chin, Frank. Gunga Din Highway. Follows two generations of the Kwan family, weaving
mythology and humor into the lives of a Chinese American family and their life in Hollywood's
movie business.
Chin, Frank. Donald Duk. On the eve of the Chinese New Year in San Francisco's Chinatown,
twelve-year-old Donald Duk attempts to deal with his comical name and his feelings for his
cultural heritage.
Jen, Gish. Typical American. Ralph, Theresa, and Helen all move from China to America to
escape political turbulence. But once in America they find their lives, their morals, their beliefs
and dreams changing.
Jen, Gish. Mona in the Promised Land. In 1968, teenager Mona Chang and her family discover a
confusing new world filled with ethnic complexities when they move to exclusive Scarshill, New
York.
Jin, Ha. A Free Life. In this novel, Nan Wu, a Chinese graduate student in Boston, drops out after
the Tiananmen Square massacre. He would like to abandon his marriage, too, but his sense of
duty toward Pingping and their young son is stronger than his desire for passion and the
freedom to write poetry. Emotionally powerful and tender, Ha Jin's tale of one immigrant
family's odyssey in America affirms humankind's essential mission, to honor life.
Keefe, Patrick Radden. The Snakehead: An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the
American Dream. The Snakehead is a panoramic tale of international intrigue and a dramatic
portrait of the underground economy in which America’s twelve million illegal immigrants live.
Based on hundreds of interviews, Patrick Radden Keefe’s sweeping narrative tells the story not
only of Sister Ping, but of the gangland gunslingers who worked for her, the immigration and law
enforcement officials who pursued her, and the generation of penniless immigrants who risked
death and braved a 17,000 mile odyssey so that they could realize their own version of the
American dream. The Snakehead offers an intimate tour of life on the mean streets of
Chinatown, a vivid blueprint of organized crime in an age of globalization and a masterful
exploration of the ways in which illegal immigration affects us all. (from Amazon.com)
Kingston, Maxine Hong. Woman Warrior. Maxine Hong Kingston grew up to two worlds. There
was "solid America," the place her parents emigrated to, and the China of her mother's "talkstories." In talk-stories women were warriors and her mother was still a doctor in China who
could cure the sick and scare away ghosts, not a harried and frustrated woman running a stifling
laundromat in California. But what is story and what is truth? In China, a ghost is a supernatural
being; in America it is anyone who is not Chinese. In addition, underlying even the most exciting
talk-stories of Chinese women warriors is the real oppression of Chinese women: "There is a
Chinese word for the female 'I' - which is 'slave.' " In an attempt to figure out her world, Maxine
Hong Kingston finds herself creating stories of her own, filling in the blanks her mother has not
told her because her daughter is, after all, not true Chinese and thus cannot be completely
trusted. Can these new stories explain why she had trouble speaking in the American schools?
Can they help her understand the aunt who committed adultery and whose existence is denied?
The new stories refuse to fall into traditional forms, and the realizations that come from them
often bring out a beautiful, passionate anger that practically burns through the pages. This is
powerful, experimental writing, a combination of love, hate, frustration, and sheer beauty.
Kwok, Jean. Girl in Translation. A resolute yet naïve Chinese girl confronts poverty and culture
shock with equal zeal when she and her mother immigrate to Brooklyn in Kwok's affecting
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coming-of-age debut. Ah-Kim Chang, or Kimberly as she is known in the U.S., had been a
promising student in Hong Kong when her father died. Now she and her mother are indebted to
Kimberly's Aunt Paula, who funded their trip from Hong Kong, so they dutifully work for her in a
Chinatown clothing factory where they earn barely enough to keep them alive. Despite this, and
living in a condemned apartment that is without heat and full of roaches, Kimberly excels at
school, perfects her English, and is eventually admitted to an elite, private high school. An
obvious outsider, without money for new clothes or undergarments, she deals with added social
pressures, only to be comforted by an understanding best friend, Annette, who lends her
makeup and hands out American advice. A love interest at the factory leads to a surprising plot
line, but it is the portrayal of Kimberly's relationship with her mother that makes this more than
just another immigrant story. (from Publishers Weekly)
Lee, Gus. China Boy. In the 1950s, Kai Ting and his family come to San Francisco, but his mother
dies shortly thereafter, and his new stepmother wants to erase everything Chinese from his life.
Lee, Wendy. Happy Family. A recent immigrant from China, Hua Wu escapes the tedium of her
Chinatown restaurant job and the loneliness of her crowded New York City tenement when she
is hired by Jane, a museum curator of Asian art, and her theater critic husband to become the
nannyof Lily, their recently adopted young daughter from China.
Namioka, Lensey. Mismatch. Their families clash when a Japanese-American teenaged boy
starts dating a Chinese-American teenaged girl.
Namioka, Lensey. Ties That Bind, Ties That Break. The third daughter in her Chinese prosperous
family, Ailin is the only one who manages to avoid the tradition of foot binding, and her
unbound feet make her common in the eyes of relatives and friends. In fact, the marriage that
had been arranged for her when she was four is canceled by the boy's mother for that reason.
Fortunately, Ailin's father is sensitive to her indomitable spirit and curious intellect. Although
girls' education at that time was typically limited to "family schools," he arranges for her to
attend a school run by American missionaries. She proves to be a gifted student, but her hope
that she might someday become a teacher of English is dashed when her father dies when she is
12. Her uncle then gives her three choices: to become a nun, a farmer's wife, or a concubine.
Defying him, she leaves home to care for the young children of the missionaries and eventually
travels to San Francisco with them. There, she later marries an ambitious young restaurateur.
Set against the backdrop of political unrest and social change, this novel provides a realistic
window into turn-of-the-century Chinese culture. Ailin is an archetype of the young women who
not only questioned their roles in an emerging society but also had the courage to create new
ones.
Raban, Jonathan. Waxwings. A novel set in Seattle at the turn of the millennium follows two
immigrants as they struggle to achieve the American dream in the midst of terrorism, economic
fireworks, and unrest in the streets.
See, Lisa. On Gold Mountain. Out of the stories heard in her childhood in Los Angeles's
Chinatown and years of research, See has constructed this sweeping chronicle of her ChineseAmerican family, a work that takes in stories of racism and romance, entrepreneurial genius and
domestic heartache, secret marriages and sibling rivalries, in a powerful history of two cultures
meeting in a new world.
Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club. Four Chinese women formed the club in San Francisco; now the
American-born daughter of one learns about her mother's deepest wish.
Wong, Joyce Lee. Seeing Emily. Relates in free verse the experiences of sixteen-year-old Emily, a
gifted artist and the daughter of immigrants to the United States, as she tries to reconcile her
American self with her Chinese heritage.
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Yep, Laurence. The Journal of Wong Ming-Chung. In 1852, during the height of the California
Gold Rush, ten-year-old Wong Ming-Chung makes the dangerous trip to America to join his
uncle on his hunt for a fortune. The true treasure for Ming-Chung, though, is America itself.
Yep, Laurence. The Traitor. This novel, based on a true event, tells the story of two young teens
who live in Rock Springs, WY, in 1885 when animosity between American and Chinese miners
reaches its peak. Born in the U.S. to Chinese parents who emigrated from Kwangtung, Joseph
Young considers himself an American, but both communities see him as only Chinese. Michael
Purdy is an "outsider" because of his illegitimate birth. The boys meet when Michael escapes
hounding by bullies and hides in a cave outside of town where Joseph is fossil hunting. In
chapters that alternate between the two boys, the book describes their growing friendship
despite the escalating trouble between the Chinese and the "Westerners" who blame the
newcomers for their economic hardships and march on Chinatown in a rampage. Author Yep
does a good job portraying the rampant prejudice, and he does not sugarcoat the horrifying
violence, told from Michael's point of view. In stark contrast to the inhumanity he sees in the
streets, his mother acts humanely in spite of her negative view of the Chinese.
Yep, Laurence. Mountain Light. Swept up in one of the local rebellions against the Manchus in
China, nineteen-year-old Squeaky loses his home and travels to America to seek his fortune
among the gold fields of California.
Chinese Short Stories, Plays, Poems, Overviews, etc.
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Chin, Frank. The Chinaman Pacific & Frisco R.R. Co. Short stories (Chinese Americans).
Wang, L. Ling-Chi. Chinese American Poetry: An Anthology.
Wang, Ping. American Visas. (Chinese Americans).
Colombian - Novels/Memoirs
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Franco, Jorge. Paradise Travel. Marlon Cruz, a naive young man from Medellin, Columbia,
accompanies the woman he loves to New York, where he loses his way and finds himself alone
in an unfamiliar world.
Gomez, Iris. Try to Remember. As her immigrant Colombian father slips into a deep depression,
and her mother slips deeper into denial, Gabi realizes that she and her mother must help her
father before their family loses everything and risks deportation.
Cuban - Novels/Memoirs
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Eire, Carlos. Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy. Noted religion scholar
Carlos Eire's idyllic and privileged childhood in Havana came to an end in the wake of Castro's
revolution. In this memoir, he reveals an exotic, magical Cuba and an eccentric family: his father
- a municipal judge and art collector - believed that in a past life he had been King Louis XVI. In
1962, Carlos Eire's world changed forever when he and his brother were among the 14,000
children airlifted off the island, their parents left behind. In chronicling his life before and after
his arrival in America, Mr. Eire's personal story is also a meditation on loss and suffering,
redemption and rebirth.
Flores-Galbis, Enrique. 90 Miles to Havana. When Julian's parents send him and his two
brothers to Miami to escape from the Cuban revolution, the boys are thrust into a new world
where bullies run rampant and it is not always clear how best to protect themselves.
García, Cristina. The Agüero Sisters: A Novel. The acclaimed new novel by the author of
"Dreaming in Cuban". Told in the stirring voices of their parents, their daughters, and
themselves, "The Aguero Sisters" weaves a mesmerizing story about the power of myth to
unmask, transform, and finally reveal the truth--as two women move toward an uncertain, longawaited reunion.
Garcia, Christina. A Handbook to Luck. Birds grace the pages of Garcia's most transfixing and
moving novel to date, emblems of transcendence and hope in defiance of the gravity of fate. As
in her earlier novels, including Monkey Hunting (2003), Garcia writes from several points of view
as she tells unpredictably linked stories of people in flight from oppression during the 1970s and
1980s. Young Enrique Florit accompanies his exuberantly flamboyant and talented Cuban
magician father, Fernando, as he flees Castro and the wrath of his late wife's family, seeking
fame and fortune in Hollywood and Las Vegas. As war ravages El Salvador, Marta Claros, whose
brother lives in a tree, leaves her abusive husband and bravely makes her way to California,
where she finds sanctuary with a kind Korean factory owner. Leila Rezvani allows herself a brief
interlude of pleasure in Las Vegas before returning to Tehran and a disastrous arranged
marriage. Garcia's vital characters cope with exile, violence, and crushed dreams as they
struggle toward love and freedom. As Garcia constructs concentric worlds of conflict and
longing, discerns cultural paradoxes and human contrariness, and writes rhapsodically of
nature's beauty, life emerges as a cosmic game of chance under luck's misrule. (from Booklist)
Hijuelos, Oscar. The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. Cuban musicians become the toast of
New York night life.
Obejas, Achy. Days of Awe. Born in Havana on New Year's 1959, the very day Fidel Castro
comes to power, Alejandra is raised in Chicago after her parents' daring escape. Their
neighborhood is predominantly Jewish, and as Ale grows up she picks up on small signs that her
family has something in common with its neighbors. It is not until she is an adult, however,
working as an interpreter, that she discovers that her father is Jewish, the grandson of a
flamboyantly Jewish hero of the Cuban war of independence; her mother, though devoutly
Catholic, has Jewish ancestors, too. On a series of trips to Cuba, Ale comes to know her father's
oldest friend, Moises, and through him learns her family's history. She also learns about
contemporary Cuba and gradually comes to terms with her own identity. The novel digs deep
into questions of faith, conversion, nationality and history. Though sharp, cleverly observed
details bring Havana and Chicago to life, the novel is richer in ideas than in depictions of place.
Author Obejas is concerned most of all with relationships between Ale and her lovers, male and
female; between Ale and her secretive father.
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Obejas, Achy. Memory Mambo. Juani, a 24-year-old Latina lesbian, is exiled, with her irresistibly
crazy family, from Cuba to the United States. Here a chorus of cousins--blood cousins and
"cousins in exile"--wreak havoc as Juani attempts to sift through layers of memories and family
myth to find the truth about her life.
Ojito, Mirta. Finding Mañana: A Memoir of a Cuban Exodus. Mirta Ojito chronicles her family's
immigration from Castro's Cuba to the United States in the 1980 Mariel Boatlift, describing how
the journey impacted her own life and her impressions of the United States.
Samartin, Cecilia. Broken Paradise. Cousins Nora and Alicia, raised among Havana's privileged
class, face difficult challenges in 1956 when Castro takes over the country. This prompts Nora to
move to the United States where she struggles to fit in, and leaves Alicia to try to adapt to food
shortages, disease, the outlawing of religion, and other harsh realities of changed life in Cuba.
Triana, Gaby. Cubanita. Seventeen-year-old Isabel, eager to leave Miami to attend the
University of Michigan and escape her overprotective Cuban mother, learns some truths about
her family's past and makes important decisions about the type of person she wants to be.
Veciana-Suarez, Ana. Flight to Freedom. Writing in the diary which her father gave her,
thirteen-year-old Yara describes life with her family in Havana, Cuba, in 1967 as well as her
experiences in Miami, Florida, after immigrating there to be reunited with some relatives while
leaving others behind.
Cuban Short Stories, Plays, Poems, Overviews, etc.
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Suárez, Virgil and Delia Poey. Little Havana Blues: A Cuban-American Literature Anthology.
Czech - Novels/Memoirs
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Cather, Willa. My Antonia. Czech immigrant Antonia Shimerda comes to the Nebraska plains
and works as a servant for her neighbors after her father's death. She elopes and then returns to
marry a Bohemian farmer.
Dominican - Novels/Memoirs
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Julia Alvarez. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent. It's a long way from Santo Domingo to the
Bronx, but if anyone can go the distance, it's the Garcia girls. Four lively Latinas plunged from a
pampered life of privilege on an island compound into the big-city chaos of New York rebel
against Mami and Papi's old-world discipline.
Alvarez, Julia. Yo! A Novel (Sequel to How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent). The center of
many lives, thrice-married writer Yolanda Garcia celebrates her fame while entangling others in
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her web, in a story that is told from the viewpoints of the confused people whose lives she
touches.
Diaz, Junot. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Things have never been easy for Oscar, a
seriously overweight first-generation Dominican-American, living in New Jersey. He's a likeable
nerd who dreams of becoming the next J.R.R. Tolkien, and of falling in love himself.
Perez, Loida Maritza. Geographies of Home. Dominican family with fourteen children tries to
succeed in the United States. The central character is Iliana who attends college. In college, a
Hispanic is out of place, but Iliana feels even more out of place when she returns home to
Brooklyn. A brother is having an adulterous affair with the wife of another brother, a sister lives
with chickens, while another has visions of demons.
Dominican Short Stories, Plays, Poems, Overviews, etc.
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Diaz, Junot. Drown: Short stories by Junot Diaz. Diaz's first collection of ten stories, some having
appeared in the New Yorker and other magazines, is certain to draw attention for its gritty view
of life in the barrios of the Dominican Republic and rough neighborhoods of New Jersey.
East Indian - Novels/Memoirs
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Lahiri, Jhumpa. The Namesake. A young man born of Indian parents in America struggles with
issues of identity from his teens to his thirties. Told with beautiful details, Gogol's story is
neither comedy nor tragedy; it's simply that ordinary, hard-to-get-down-on-paper commodity:
real life.
Pradhan, Monica. The Hindi-Bindi Club. As youngsters, first generation Americans Kiran, Preity,
and Rani often scoffed at their mothers, who they dubbed the Hindi-Bindi Club, but as adults
they come to realize there may be some value in the "old country" ways. Includes recipes. Like
Amy Tan's Joy Luck Club, Pradhan's first novel, which features six alternating narrators, speaks
to the cultural and generational tensions between immigrant mothers and their Westernized
daughters.
Ethiopian - Novels/Memoirs
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Mengestu, Dinaw. The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears. In his run-down store in a
gentrifying neighborhood of Washington, D.C., Ethiopian immigrant Stepha Stephanos regularly
meets with fellow African immigrants Ken the Kenyan and Joe from the Congo. Their favorite
game is matching African nations to coups and dictators, as they consider how their new
immigrant expectations measure up to the reality of life in America after 17 years. From his
store and nearby apartment, Stephanos makes keen observations of American race and class
tensions, seeing similarities--physical and social--to his hometown of Addis Ababa, where his
father was killed in the throes of revolution. When Judith, a white woman, and Naomi, her
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mixed-race daughter, move into the neighborhood, Stephanos finds tentative prospects for
friendship beyond his African compatriots. He encounters some disapproval of his new
relationship, as well as tensions about the wave of gentrification in the neighborhood.
Mengestu, himself an Ethiopian immigrant, engages the reader in a deftly drawn portrait of
dreams in the face of harsh realities from the perspective of immigrants. (from Booklist)
Asgedom, Mawi. Of Beetles and Angels. The true story of Mawi Asgedom, who emigrated from
Ethiopia to the U.S. in 1983 at age seven after fleeing civil war in his homeland and then
spending three years in a refugee camp in Sudan. "Growing up he overcame linguistic, cultural
and financial challenges and eventually earned a full-tuition scholarship to Harvard. He delivered
the commencement address there at his graduation in 1999." (Book Cover)
Filipino - Novels/Memoirs
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De La Cruz, Melissa. Fresh Off the Boat. When her family emigrates from the Philippines to San
Francisco, California, fourteen-year-old Vicenza Arambullo struggles to fit in at her exclusive, allgirl private school.
Emburg, Kate. The Language of Love. To Miguel Sarmiento, Leanne is a traditional Filipino girl.
But in reality, exotic Leanna has grown up with her mom and stepdad in a household that's as
American as apple pie. Now as things heat up between them, Leanne wonders how long she can
keep up her act. Can a love based on lies ever survive?
Hagedorn, Jessica Tarahata. The Gangster of Love. This tells the story of Rocky Rivera, who has
emigrated from the Philippines to the United States along with her mother and her emotionally
disturbed brother, Voltaire. Rocky has a hippyish adolescence in 1970s San Francisco, then
moves to New York City with her boyfriend, Elvis Chang, and her best friend, a photographer
named Keiko.
Roley, Brian Ascalon. American Son: A Novel. American Son is the story of two Filipino brothers
adrift in contemporary California. The older brother, Tomas, fashions himself into a Mexican
gangster and breeds pricey attack dogs, which he trains in German and sells to Hollywood
celebrities. The narrator is younger brother Gabe, who tries to avoid the tar pit of Tomas's
waywardness, yet moves ever closer to embracing it. Their mother, who moved to America to
escape the caste system of Manila and is now divorced from their American father, struggles to
keep her sons in line while working two dead-end jobs.
Romero, Sophia G. Always Hiding: A Novel. "My birth should have been an auspicious occasion
for my parents because I was their first child. But I was born a girl and in the Philippines that
made all the difference," writes Maria Violetta Rosario Dananay, the narrator of this story. Her
life was at first a happy one, beloved by both father and mother. But when her father eloped
with his latest flame, who was pregnant by him, the world turned sour. Her mother, unable to
face the disgrace, fled to New York and became an illegal alien. Virtually deserted by her father,
she lived as dangerously as she could until her father, who was in serious political trouble, sent
her to her mother in New York. There she encountered an entirely new set of problems and
courageously set out to conquer them. Always Hiding is a new and fascinating view of modern
Filipino life.
Santos, Bienvenido N. What the Hell for You Left Your Heart in San Francisco: A Novel.
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Simpson, Mona. My Hollywood. Struggling with her television writer husband's long hours and
her own lack of childcare experience, composer and new mother Claire hires Lola, a Filipino
mother of five seeking to finance her children's education back in the Philippines, who becomes
privately devoted to her employers.
Filipino Short Stories, Plays, Poems, Overviews, etc.
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Brainard, Cecilia, ed. Growing Up Filipino. This book includes 29 short stories about Filipino
youths. Some of the authors still live in the Philippines, have immigrated to the U.S., or are
Filipino-American born. Tough but relevant topics are addressed.
Santos, Bienvenido N. Scent of Apples: A Collection of Stories.
Galang, Evelina. Her Wild American Self: Short Stories. (Filipino Americans).
Finnish – Novels/Memoirs
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Durbin, William. Song of Sampo Lake. In 1900, as a family of Finnish immigrants begins farming
on the edge of a Minnesota lake, Matti works as a store clerk, teaches English, and works on the
homestead, striving to get out of his older brother's shadow and earn their father's respect.
Yep, Laurence. The Journal of Otto Peltonen. In 1905 fifteen-year-old Otto describes in his
journal how he travels from Finland to America, joining his father in a dreary iron mining
community in Minnesota and becoming involved in a union fight for better working conditions.
French – Novels/Memoirs
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Sachs, Marilyn. Lost in America. Coming home after a sleepover, Nicole, a young French girl,
finds her home ransacked and discovers that the Gestapo has seized her parents and sister.
Terrified and alone, she is forced to seek out an estranged aunt who agrees to keep her. After
the Nazi occupation of France ends in 1944, Nicole emigrates to join relatives in New York – not
that they really want her – and she struggles to find work, friends, and a home of her own. The
history is authentic and leaves a deep impression, revealing that many Americans felt untouched
by the war and didn’t want to know about it.
German – Novels/Memoirs
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Erdrich, Louise. The Master Butcher’s Singing Club. With a suitcase full of sausages and a
master butcher's precious set of knives, Fidelis sets out for America, getting as far as North
Dakota, where he builds a business, a home for his family -- which includes Eva and four sons -and a singing club consisting of the best voices in town.
Franke, Richard J. Cut from Whole Cloth: An Immigrant Experience. Accomplished businessman
Richard J. Franke offers an intimate account of the American immigrant experience, recounting
the moving story of his grandparents' struggle to build a new life in turn-of-the-century America.
Franke draws on extensive primary sources to create an engrossing narrative of his Catholic
grandfather and Lutheran grandmother as they flee religious intolerance and economic
adversity in Germany and immigrate to America in 1884. They settle in Springfield, Illinois,
where they start a family and business and live out the American dream — with its attendant
perils and promises — as their business evolves froma tailor's shop to a modern, thriving dry
cleaner. Their story is one of strife, frustration, and success. Franke chronicles how they struggle
to raise a family in a foreign culture with radically different values, as the old world morals that
fuel their prosperity give rise to ancient family tensions that haunt each new generation. By
turns charming, wrenching, and poetic, Cut from Whole Cloth is an intensely personal yet
timeless tale that will appeal to nearly every descendant of immigrants.
Gaffney, Elizabeth. Metropolis. This novel tells the story of Frank Harris, a young German
immigrant, who is drawn into the criminal underworld of New York in the 1870s.
Hegi, Ursula. The Vision of Emma Blau. An epic story of German immigrants attempting to
assimilate while still preserving traces of home in their language and rituals. In 1894 Stefan Blau
leaves Europe for America; he is only 13 years old, but he feels the need for another country so
strongly that it wakes him up at night. After narrowly escaping a restaurant fire in New York City,
he finds himself in New Hampshire. With money he has saved from waiter jobs and poker
winnings, he buys a small hotel, which over time he transforms into a six-story, elaborate
apartment house.
Levitin, Sonia. Silver days. Escaping from Hitler's Germany, a prosperous Jewish family lives in a
New York City tenement until Papa decides to move the family to California.
Sharratt, Mary. B. Summit Avenue. Orphaned by the age of 16, German native Kathrin Albrecht
is sent to America in 1912, where she barely ekes out a living sewing flour bags for the Pillsbury
Mill in Minneapolis, but finds sanctuary and friendship in an antique bookstore.
Greek - Novels/Memoirs
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Douros, Basil. Carved in Stone. Takes place both in Boston and in rural Greece, describing the
culture and traditions that the Greek men and women brought with them when they emigrated
to America in the early 1900's.
Eugenides, Jeffrey. Middlesex. Story of three generations of a Greek-American family who
travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit,
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witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of 1967, before they move out to
the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan.
George, Harry S. Demo of 70th Street. New York in the early 1900's is an exciting place with a
mixture of cultures for young Demosthenes, a Greek immigrant boy.
Janus, Christopher. Miss 4th of July, Goodbye. A family emigrates from Greece to Montgomery,
W. Va. in 1917, and is disillusioned by the prejudice and violence of the Ku Klux Klan.
Lambros, Nickos. Odysseus. An illegal immigrant chases the "American Dream" and achieves it
at the expense of his heritage and perhaps his soul.
Papandreou, Nicholas. A Crowded Heart. The story of a young man from California whose
family returns to Greece, where his father pursues a career in politics. The real subject here is
the love-hate relationship of the little American boy transplanted to a culture he doesn't know
and is unwilling to accept.
Papanikolas, Helen. A Greek Odyssey in the American West. Begins with the author's childhood
in Helper, Utah, a way station for the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad. Helper's
population was as odd a conglomeration as could be found anywhere in the West : French
sheepherders; Chinese and Japanese restaurant owners; African American, Greek, and Italian
rail and coal workers; and Mormon, Jewish, and Slav businessmen. This is not, however,
Papanikolas's life story, but rather the tale of her parents' individual emigrations to the U.S.,
their meeting and courtship, and their migrations within the West as they pursued job
opportunities. Papanikolas re-creates and interprets the experience of parents who try hard to
succeed in America without losing their rich heritage and who ultimately enrich the culture of
their adopted country.
Papanikolas, Helen. The Time of the Little Black Bird. The story of generations of Greek
Americans, with its story of loyalty, betrayal, tradition and greed. Centering on a family business
that grows from a few shabby storefronts and a run-down hotel near the Salt Lake City railroad
yards, the story finds the Kallos family weathering the Depression and the war years to become
rich. Beset, though, by awkward attempts to assimilate and by testing the family's values, the
family solidarity unravels and the business treachery that has been developing for three
generations is uncovered.
Greek Short Stories, Plays, Poems, Overviews, etc.
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Papanikolas, Helen. The Apple Falls from the Apple Tree and Small Bird, Tell Me. Two
Collections of short stories about Greek Americans.
Dost, Elizabeth. B. Home Alone in America: Letters Exchanged by a Young German in the U.S.
and his family in Berlin from 1946-1955. "The extraordinary collection of letters exchanged
during those years by Helmut Dost in the United States and his family in Berlin tell the suspensefilled story of a young man's unanticipated struggles and challenges in the country of his birth.
At the same time, they give us intriguing glimpses of life in beleaguered West Berlin during the
tense days of the Cold War." (from book cover)
Steinberg, Ellen. Irma: a Chicago Woman’s Story, 1871-1966. Irma Rosenthal Frankenstein was
born in Chicago of German Jewish parents who had come to the U.S. shortly after the Civil War.
In her diaries, she documents her family’s activities during the Chicago Fire, the city’s rebuilding,
early educational curricula in the city’s schools, what it was like to participate in the suffrage
movement and vote for the first time, the effect of the Great Depression on the middle class,
and World War II as seen from her perspective. (Book Cover)
Guatamalen Novels/Memoirs
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Welter John. I Want to Buy a Vowel. Eva Galt, a young minister's child, begins asking hard
questions about God and her parents' divorce, while illegal immigrant Alfredo Santayana
questions the American dream, and when their paths cross, the result is a satire on small-town
media culture run amok.
Haitian Novels/Memoirs
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Danticat, Edwidge. Behind the Mountains. Writing in the notebook which her teacher gave her,
thirteen-year-old Celiane describes life with her mother and brother in Haiti as well as her
experiences in Brooklyn after the family finally immigrates there to be reunited with her father.
Danticat, Edwidge. Breath, Eyes, Memory: A Novel. At the age of 12, Sophie Caco is sent from
her impoverished Haitian village to New York, to be reunited with a mother she barely
remembers. There she discovers secrets that no child should ever know, and a legacy of shame
that can be healed only when she returns to Haiti - to the woman who first reared her. What
ensues is a passionate journey through a landscape charged with the supernatural and scarred
by political violence, in a novel that bears witness to the traditions, suffering, and wisdom of an
entire people.
Danicat, Edwidge. Brother, I'm Dying. Edwidge Danticat describes the relationship between her
father, Mira, and his older brother, Joseph, discussing how their relationship changed from their
childhood in Haiti through their immigration to America to their eventual separation.
Danticat, Edwidge. The Dew Breaker. A series of related stories around a shadowy central
figure, a Haitian immigrant to the U.S. who reveals to his artist daughter that he is not, as she
believes, a prison escapee, but a former prison guard, skilled in torture and the other violent
control methods of a brutal regime.
Placide, Jaira. Fresh Girl. After having been sent, at a very young age, from New York to live with
her grandmother in Haiti, fourteen-year-old Mardi returns to join her parents and try to shape a
new life in Brooklyn.
Danticat, Edwidge, ed. The Butterfly's Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United
States
Hmong Novels/Memoirs
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Fadiman, Anne. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: a Hmong Child with Epilepsy, Her
American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures. The Hmong people in America are mainly
refugee families who supported the CIA militaristic efforts in Laos. They are a clannish group
with a firmly established culture that combines issues of health care with a deep spirituality that
may be deemed primitive by Western standards. In Merced, CA, which has a large Hmong
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community, Lia Lee was born, the 13th child in a family coping with their plunge into a modern
and mechanized way of life. The child suffered an initial seizure at the age of three months. Her
family attributed it to the slamming of the front door by an older sister. They felt the fright had
caused the baby's soul to flee her body and become lost to a malignant spirit. The report of the
family's attempts to cure Lia through shamanistic intervention and the home sacrifices of pigs
and chickens is balanced by the intervention of the medical community that insisted upon the
removal of the child from deeply loving parents with disastrous results.
Shea, Pegi. Tangled Threads — A Hmong Girl's Story: A Novel. After ten years in a refugee
camp in Thailand, thirteen-year-old Mai Yang travels to Providence, Rhode Island, where her
Americanized cousins introduce her to pizza, shopping, and beer, while her grandmother and
new friends keep her connected to her Hmong heritage.
Hmong Short Stories, Plays, Poems, Overviews, etc.
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Chan, Scucheng, ed. Hmong Means Free: Life in Laos and America. This collection of evocative
personal testimonies by three generations of Hmong refugees is the first to describe their lives
in Laos as slash-and-burn farmers, as refugees after a Communist government came to power in
1975, and as immigrants in the United States. Reflecting on the homes left behind, their
narratives chronicle the difficulties of forging a new identity. From Jou Yee Xiong's Life Story: "I
stopped teaching my sons many of the Hmong ways because I felt my ancestors and I had
suffered enough already. I thought that teaching my children the old ways would only place a
burden on them." From Ka Pao Xiong's (Jou Yee Xiong's son) Life Story: "It has been very difficult
for us to adapt because we had no professions or trades and we suffered from culture shock.
Here in America, both the husband and wife must work simultaneously to earn enough money
to live on. Many of our children are ignorant of the Hmong way of life.
Lee, Stacey J. Up Against Whiteness: Race School, and Immigrant Youth. This book explores the
way a group of first- and second-generation Hmong students created their identities as "new
Americans" in response to their school experiences at University Heights High School in
Wisconsin.
Mote, Sue. Hmong and American: Stories of Transition to a Strange Land. Farmers in Laos,
U.S. allies during the Vietnam War, refugees in Thailand, citizens of the Western world—the
stories of the Hmong who now live in America have been told in detail through books and
articles and oral histories over the past several decades. Like any immigrant group, members of
the first generation may yearn for the past as they watch their children and grandchildren find
their way in the dominant culture of their new home. For Hmong people born and educated in
the United States, a definition of self often includes traditional practices and tight-knit family
groups but also a distinctly Americanized point of view. How do Hmong Americans negotiate the
expectations of these two very different cultures?
Honduran Novels/Memoirs
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Nazario, Sonia. Enrique’s Journey. Addresses the issues of family and illegal immigration
through the story of a young boy's dangerous journey from Honduras to the U.S. in search of his
mother, who left him and his sibling behind make a better life for her family.
Hungarian Novels/Memoirs
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Raban, Jonathan. Waxwings. A novel set in Seattle at the turn of the millennium follows two
immigrants as they struggle to achieve the American dream in the midst of terrorism, economic
fireworks, and unrest in the streets.
Indian Novels/Memoirs
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Banerjee, Anjali. Imaginary Men. Lina Ray has a knack for pairing up perfect couples as a
professional matchmaker in San Francisco, but her well-meaning, highly traditional Indian family
wants her to get married. When her Auntie Kiki introduces Lina to the bachelor from hell at her
sister's wedding in India, Lina panics and blurts out, "I'm engaged!" Because what's the harm in
a little lie?
Banerjee, Anjali. Invisible Lives. Lakshmi Sen has the uncanny ability to read people's emotions.
She puts her gift to use in her mother's Seattle sari shop -- finding fabrics that ease a bride's cold
feet, evoke a widow's first love, and even soothe a young autistic boy's fears. Her notoriety
draws the interest of a Bollywood star, and then Lakshmi meets the charming chauffeur, Nick.
Will she allow herself to fall for Nick or marry the Indian doctor her family has chosen for her?
Author Banerjee captures the struggle between tradition and modernity in this accessible
romance. Readers will appreciate that Banerjee doesn't choose sides and offers a variety of
perspectives through her characters.
Cherian, Anne. A Good Indian Wife. Suneel Sarath was born in India, but he is completely
Americanized. A Stanford graduate, he is now an anesthesiologist in a San Francisco hospital,
owns a condo, and even has a girlfriend from Wisconsin. So he is stunned when, despite his best
efforts to be independent, he finds himself returning from a visit to his home village with a
“good” Indian bride his parents picked for him. Teacher Leila, though pretty, is a spinster by
village standards, and she’s thrilled with her new husband. But Neel remains shocked and in
denial and goes on with his routine, leaving Leila to fend for herself in her new world. But
sooner or later he has to face his wife, find a halfway point between his rural Indian heritage
and urban America life, and decide if Leila is more to him than just part of a contract his parents
agreed on. Cherian’s debut novel adds new dimension to the concept and experience of an
arranged marriage, and considers such complex and salient issues as immigration and
assimilation. (from Booklist)
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Desai, Anita. Fasting, Feasting. As Uma, the unmarriageable adult daughter of an Indian lawyer,
copes with her parents' demands and traditional Indian family life, her younger brother, Arun,
must face a vastly different life living with an American family in a Massachusetts suburb.
Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee. The Mistress of Spices. Tilo, a young woman born in a faraway
place and time, must choose between the supernatural life of an immortal and the hardships of
life on Earth when she travels through time to modern-day California and falls in love with a
mortal man.
Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee. Queen of Dreams. Rakhi, a young artist living in Berkeley,
California, finds herself caught between the turmoil of life in America in the wake of September
11th and the India of her mother, a woman with the ability to share and interpret the dreams of
others.
D'Souza, Tony. The Konkans. Francisco D'Sai, the son of an American mother and an Indian
Catholic, witnesses his mother's attempts to protect his family's heritage, despite his father's
desire to become fully Americanized.
Hidier, Tanuja Desai. Born Confused. Seventeen-year-old Dimple, whose family is from India,
discovers that she is not Indian enough for the Indians and not American enough for the
Americans, as she sees her hypnotically beautiful, manipulative best friend taking possession of
both her heritage and the boy she likes.
Lahiri, Jhumpa. The Namesake. A portrait of the immigrant experience follows the Ganguli
family from their traditional life in India through their arrival in Massachusetts in the late 1960s
and their difficult melding into an American way of life.
Mukherjee, Bharati. Jasmine. In her passage from India, Jyote becomes Jasmine then Jane. She
lives in Manhattan, Florida, and finally ends up as a farm wife in Iowa. The author forces the
reader to see America with new eyes in this well-written novel of transformation.
Nigam, Sanjay. Transplanted Man. Serving a community of eccentric expatriates from India,
rebellious medical resident Sonny Seth faces personal demons while being drawn into the world
of one of his patients, a high-level Indian government official who is being hunted by assassins.
Vijayaraghavan, Vineeta. Motherland. Fifteen-year-old Maya learns the cause of the rift she
feels between her and her mother and is finally able to come to terms with her divided loyalties
when she leaves New York to spend the summer with her grandmother in southern India, the
land of her birth.
Indian Short Stories, Plays, Poems, Overviews, etc.
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Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee. The Unknown Errors of Our Lives. A collection of short stories set
in India explores the adjustment of immigrants to a foreign land, the accommodations families
make to the differences between generations, and the struggle to find a balance between the
pull of home and the promise of change.
Chandra, G. S. Sharat. Sari of the Gods. A collection of stories describes the challenges faced by
Indian Americans as they try to adapt to a new culture while preserving their heritage.
Reddi, Rishi. Karma and Other Stories. Set primarily in Boston and its suburbs, Reddi's debut
focuses on individuals and families struggling to reconcile their East Indian backgrounds with
American life, while attempting to preserve their ethnic communities.
Lahiri, Jhumpa. Interpreter of Maladies. A collection of short stories which chart the emotional
journeys of East Indian characters seeking love beyond the borders of nations and generations.
Iranian Novels/Memoirs
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Dubus, Andre, III. House of Sand and Fog. Three fragile yet determined people are drawn by
their competing desires to the same small house in the California hills and become dangerously
entangled in a relentlessly escalating crisis.
Dumas, Firoozeh. Funny in Farsi: a Memoir of Growing Up in America. Dumas first came to the
U.S. from Iran in the early '70s when her father was sent to California on a two-year contract
from the National Iranian Oil Company. Her family soon discovered that his presumed skill in
English was basically limited to "vectors, surface tension and fluid mechanics." In short,
humorous vignettes, the author recounts their resulting difficulties and Americans' almost total
ignorance of Iran, illustrating the kindness of people and her father's absolute love of this
country.
Garcia, Christina. A Handbook to Luck. Birds grace the pages of Garcia's most transfixing and
moving novel to date, emblems of transcendence and hope in defiance of the gravity of fate. As
in her earlier novels, including Monkey Hunting (2003), Garcia writes from several points of view
as she tells unpredictably linked stories of people in flight from oppression during the 1970s and
1980s. Young Enrique Florit accompanies his exuberantly flamboyant and talented Cuban
magician father, Fernando, as he flees Castro and the wrath of his late wife's family, seeking
fame and fortune in Hollywood and Las Vegas. As war ravages El Salvador, Marta Claros, whose
brother lives in a tree, leaves her abusive husband and bravely makes her way to California,
where she finds sanctuary with a kind Korean factory owner. Leila Rezvani allows herself a brief
interlude of pleasure in Las Vegas before returning to Tehran and a disastrous arranged
marriage. Garcia's vital characters cope with exile, violence, and crushed dreams as they
struggle toward love and freedom. As Garcia constructs concentric worlds of conflict and
longing, discerns cultural paradoxes and human contrariness, and writes rhapsodically of
nature's beauty, life emerges as a cosmic game of chance under luck's misrule. (from Booklist)
Eslami, Elizabeth. Bone Worship. Jasmine Fahroodhi has always been fascinated by her
enigmatic Iranian father. With his strange habits and shrouded past, she can't fathom how he
ended up marrying her prim American mother. But lately love in general feels just as
incomprehensible. After a disastrous romance sends her into a tailspin, causing her to fail out of
college just shy of graduation, a conflicted Jasmine returns home without any idea where her
life is headed. Her father has at least one idea - he has big plans for a hastegar, an arranged
marriage. Confused, furious, but intrigued, Jasmine searches for her match, meeting suitor after
suitor with increasingly disastrous (and humorous) results. As she begins to open herself up to
the mysteries of familial and romantic love, Jasmine discovers the truth about her father, and to
an even more evasive figure - herself. (from Amazon.com)
Kalita, S. Mitra. Suburban Sahibs: Three Immigrant Families and Their Passage from India to
America. Explores how immigration has altered the American suburb by focusing on the stories
of three families who immigrated to the United States from India, discussing how they have
adapted to life in the U.S.
Latifi, Afschineh. Even After All This Time: a Story of Love, Revolution, and Leaving Iran. This
poignant memoir chronicles one family's odyssey through the Iranian Revolution and beyond.
The daughter of a colonel in the shah's army and a schoolteacher, Latifi and her siblings lived a
comfortable life in Tehran in the 1970s until Khomeini catapulted into power. When her father
was arrested and executed like so many of his contemporaries, her family was immediately
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plunged into confusion and disarray. Sent with her sister to school in Austria, young Latifi did
not reunite with the rest of her family until many years later. Finally together again in the U.S.,
the Latifi clan successfully struggled to rebuild its collective future together. Culminating in a
bittersweet return trip to Iran, Latifi's tribute to her family's courage and resilience is a
compelling testament to the dauntless nature of the human spirit in the face of all types of
repression and adversity.
Moaveni, Azadeh. Lipstick Jihad: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America and American in
Iran. Author Azadeh Moaveni examines her life as an American-born Iranian and the frustration
and confusion of trying to live in both world. She describes her decision to move to Tehran as a
journalist and the cultural, political, and social upheaval she encountered.
Stratton, Allan. Borderline. The FBI raids Sami’s house and arrests his father as a suspected
terrorist. This explosive thriller is the story of a funny, gutsy Muslim-American teen determined
to save his father, his family, and his life.
Tyler, Anne. Digging to America. A chance encounter between two families--the Donaldsons,
and the Iranian-born Yasdans--at the Baltimore airport prompts an examination about what it
means to be an American. Bitsy and Brad Donaldson are the quintessential middle-class, white
American couple. Sami and Ziba Yazdan are Iranian Americans. From the beginning, the
differences in the ways they will raise their daughters are obvious: Bitsy's well-meaning but
overzealous efforts to retain her child's Korean heritage are evident in the chosen name–Jin-Ho–
and in the Korean costumes that she dresses the girl in every year as they mark the anniversary
of the adoption date. The Yazdans are comfortable with their daughter Susan's assimilation into
their own Iranian-American culture. When Bitsy's widowed father begins to show romantic
interest in Susan's grandmother, cultural differences are brought to a head.
Iraqi Novels/Memoirs
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Abu-Japer, Diana. Crescent: a novel. Thirty-nine-year-old Sirine, never married, lives with a
devoted Iraqi-immigrant uncle and an adoring dog named King Babar. She works as a chef in a
Lebanese restaurant, her passions aroused only by the preparation of food—until an unbearably
handsome Arabic literature professor starts dropping by for a little home cooking. Falling in love
brings Sirene's whole heart to a boil—stirring up memories of her parents and questions about
her identity as an Arab American.
Irish Novels/Memoirs
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Auch, Mary Jane. Ashes of Roses. Sixteen-year-old Margaret Rose Nolan, newly arrived from
Ireland, finds work at New York City's Triangle Shirtwaist Factory shortly before the 1911 fire in
which 146 employees died.
Baker, Kevin. Paradise Alley. A story set against the draft riots of 1863, at the height of the Civil
War, when Irish mobs terrorized New York City.
Carroll, James. Mortal Friends. A multigenerational saga of Irish-Americans immigrants in
Boston. Setting ranges from the Irish Rebellion of the early 1920s to the Boston of Mayor Curley
and the Kennedys in the 1940s and 1950s.
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Ceely, Jonatha. Bread and Dreams. Pursuing her dreams of building a new life for herself, Mina
heads for America in 1848 to seek her fortune in the bustling, challenging, and treacherous city
of New York and to locate her beloved long-lost brother, struggling all the while with her
growing feelings for her companion and friend, Mr. Serle.
Conlon-McKenna, Marita. Wildflower Girl. In the mid-nineteenth century, thirteen-year-old
Peggy O'Driscoll sets out alone from Ireland for America, hoping to make a better life for herself.
Holland, Isabelle. Paper Boy. This story, set in New York City in 1881, tells the story of the
prejudice against the Irish poor.
MacDonald, Michael Patrick. All Souls. Irish American Michael Patrick MacDonald describes
how his family survived the daily violence they encountered while living in South Boston
(Southie).
MacDonald, Michael Patrick. Easter Rising. Author Michael Patrick MacDonald reflects on his
childhood in South Boston, how he was different from his four siblings who died there, his move
to New York, travels to Ireland, death of his father, and more.
McCourt, Frank. ‘Tis: a Memoir. The author of the childhood memoir “Angela’s Ashes,” shares
the story of his life as an American immigrant, discussing his experiences from the age of
nineteen when he landed in New York, to his eventual success as a teacher and writer.
McDermott, Alice. At Weddings and Wakes. Children in an Irish-American family in the 1960s
tell about their activities and the stories of Irish immigrants they have heard.
Meyers, Walter Dean. Riot. In 1863, fifteen-year-old Claire, the daughter of an Irish mother and
a black father, faces ugly truths and great danger when Irish immigrants, enraged by the Civil
War and a federal draft, lash out against blacks and wealthy "swells" of New York City.
Moore, Ann. "Til Morning Light. Having left Ireland with her young children to accept a
marriage proposal from a sea captain in San Francisco, Gracelin O'Malley finds herself forced to
accept a job with a prominent doctor and caught up in blackmail and betrayal.
Nixon, Joan Lowry. Land of Promise. Arriving in Chicago from her family farm in Ireland, fifteenyear-old Rose Carney must work to help pay for her mother's and sisters' passages to America,
while struggling with her father's drinking, her brothers' political activities, and her own dreams.
Temple, Lou Jane. The Spice Box. In 1855, immigrant Bridget Heaney escaped from Ireland's
Great Famine to New York City, where she spent her childhood as a pickpocket, supporting
herself and her younger sister. But ever since she made her first pot of soup at the orphanage,
she knew she wanted to be a cook. Now, in the home of wealthy and powerful department
store owner Isaac Gold, her dream is about to come true. But with that dream comes a murder
mystery she has to solve.
Italian Novels/Memoirs
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Ardizzone, Tony. In the Garden of Papa Santuzzu. A detailed chronicle of the slow and steady
emigration of a close Sicilian family to America in the early 1900s captures the individual stories of
family members as they escape their past for a better future.
Bernardi, Adria. Openwork. Bernardi follows Imola's family and countrymen as they settle in
America, creating an expansive yet intimate multigenerational tale that reaches from the rugged
hillsides of Tuscany during the waning days of the nineteenth century to the affluent suburbs of
Chicago at the dawn of the twenty-first. As each family becomes more acclimatized to their new
culture, their sense of personal displacement deepens as they encounter tragedy more often than
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they embrace success. Bernardi's is an ethereal yet incisive. (Note - author grew up in
Highwood/Highland Park area and presented at FOCUS on the Arts 2007)
Capotorto, Carl. Twisted Head: An Italian-American Memoir. All the usual Italian-American stories
are here—Sunday dinners, being an altar boy, Grandma's gravy, the controlling father and the
family's pizza parlor—but Capotorto (whose name is Italian for twisted head) adds his own spin to
the genre: he describes growing up gay in the Bronx of the 1970s. Capotorto's humorous prose
comes to life when he describes his disco-era lifestyle, whether it be dancing the hustle or, as he's
primping for the Saturday night disco, overhearing his mom gossiping about Rock Hudson having an
affair with Jim Nabors. He describes how he first fought his feelings and then, later, embraced a gay
lifestyle despite the misgivings of his stern father. Capotorto, a playwright and actor, does a great job
describing the relationship between his parents (his father is traditional, his mother loving yet
powerless) and himself and his four sisters, who all struggle to find their way. In the end, Capotorto
skillfully weaves stories that are both comic and tragic to capture a family caught between the Old
and New worlds. (from Publishers Weekly)
Cusumano, Camille. The Last Cannoli. The Last Cannoli is a lively, fast-paced read in a voice that is
fresh and powerful. It introduces the Donitella family, ordinary people with extraordinary tales to
tell. Spanning four decades, the novel opens its mouth-watering tale in the '50s, when the father's
ritual storytelling begins to take on the power of prayer amidst the cheerful cacophony of this large
Sicilian-American family. The Donitellas, their house, and their stories will stay with you and you'll
keep thinking of them the way one thinks of interesting people one has just met. Like Laura
Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate, The Last Cannoli is a luminous story that charms the heart and
tempts the palate. It is a rich and lovely confection of a novel.
De Rosa, Tina. Paper Fish. Novel about Italian American immigrants set on the West Side of Chicago
during the 1940s and 1950s. Carmolina is torn between the bonds of the past and the pull of the
future - a need for family and a yearning for independence. As Carmolina's story unfolds, it comes to
contain many other narratives : memories and legends from the old country, passed on by her wise
and loving grandmother Doria; the courtship tale of her father, an Italian-American policeman with a
gentle heart and an artist's soul, and her mother, a lonely Lithuanian-American waitress; and the
painful story of Doriana, her beautiful, but silent sister.
Ets, Marie. Rosa: the Life of an Italian Immigrant. This is the life story of Rosa Cavalleri, an Italian
woman who came to the U.S. in 1884. Marie Hall Ets, a social worker and friend of Rosa’s at the
Chicago Commons settlement house during the years following World War I, meticulously wrote
down her lively stories. Her life in this country was hard and Ets chronicles it in eloquent
detail—Rosa endures a marriage at sixteen to an abusive older man, an unwilling migration to a
Missouri mining town, and the unassisted birth of a child, and manages to escape from a husband
who tried to force her into prostitution. Rosa’s exuberant personality, remarkable spirit and ability as
a storyteller distinguish this book.
Fante, John. 1933 Was a Bad Year. "1933" offers a pungent taste of the Italian-American experience,
and explores such issues as the gulf between immigrant parents and their American-born children.
Mangione, Jerre. Mount Allegro. Depicts the lives of Sicilian immigrants in Rochester, New York, in
the first half of the twentieth century as their customs blend and clash with those of their adopted
country.
Mazzucco, Melania G. Vita: a novel. In April 1903, the steamship Republic spills more than two
thousand immigrants onto Ellis Island. Among them are Diamante, age twelve, and Vita, nine, sent by
their poor families in southern Italy to make their way in America. Amid the chaos and splendor of
New York, the misery and criminality of Little Italy, and the shady tenants of Vita's father's decrepit
Prince Street boarding house, Diamante and Vita struggle to survive, to create a new life, and to
become American.
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Napoli, Donna. The King of Mulberry Street. Drawing on her grandfather's experience, Napoli
dramatizes a seldom-told bit of American history in this story of Italian Jewish young people in the
1890s. Beniamino, who lives in Napoli, is only nine years old when his beloved, poverty-stricken
Mama bribes someone to hide him away on a cargo ship to America. His lively, immediate firstperson narrative recalls the trauma of separation and the brutal struggle on the New York streets,
where, renamed "Dom," he makes two Italian friends, and they start a business selling sandwiches.
He keeps his Jewish identity secret, even as he tries to follow kosher rules. Always his dream is to
return home. The characters are drawn with depth, especially the three kids, and the unsentimental
story is honest about the grinding poverty and the prejudice among various immigrant groups. Most
moving is the story of letting go, as Dom confronts the fact that Mama sent him away, and America is
now his home.
Romano, Tony. When the World Was Young. In the summer of 1957, in the heart of Chicago,
Agostino and Angela Rosa Peccatori are first-generation Italian immigrants trying to make their way.
They have five children, all born in the U. S., and every day they see the old Italian ways losing
ground to American values and culture.
Ruiz, Ronald L. Giuseppe Rocco. Italian immigrant Giuseppe Rocco pulls himself up from poverty to
become the richest man in San Jose but never buys a business suit and continues to prefer the
company of Mexican workers to the governor of the state. His experience is contrasted with that of
young Sally Martinez, a Mexican American who also attempts to pull herself and her family out of
poverty.
Italian Short Stories, Plays, Poems, Overviews, etc.
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Tonelli, Bill. The Italian American Reader: A Collection of Outstanding Fiction, Memoirs,
Journalism, Essays, and Poetry.
Bernardi, Adria. In the Gathering Woods. Presents fourteen short stories, all with narrators from
the same Italian family, from sixteenth-century Italy to twentieth-century Chicago. This focus on
Italian families consistently highlights the way each generation attempts to pass to the next the
knowledge it considers vital. (Note - author grew up in Highwood/Highland Park area and presented
at FOCUS on the Arts 2007)
Lombardo, Billy. The Logic of a Rose: Chicago Stories. A collection of short stories about Italian
Americans set in a fictional neighborhood on Chicago's South Side.
Japanese Novels/Memoirs
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Furiya, Linda. Bento Box in the Heartland. Author Linda Furiya reflects on her childhood in
Versailles, Indiana, discussing the racism she experienced as the only Japanese girl in her school and
sharing stories about her parents. Includes Japanese recipes.
Guterson, David. Snow Falling on Cedars. Story of a 1954 murder on Puget Sound that has its roots
in World War II and the internment of Japanese-Americans.
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Kadohata, Cynthia. Kira-Kira. Chronicles the close friendship between two Japanese-American
sisters growing up in rural Georgia during the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the despair when one
sister becomes terminally ill.
Hamamura, John. Color of the Sea. Born in Hawaii to Japanese parents, Sam Hamada is not destined
to follow in his father's footsteps as a mere plantation worker. This powerful coming-of-age novel
treats the historic reality that to be a Japanese American in mid-20th century America was to be
perceived as neither Japanese nor American. Here the fate of two people amid the devastation of
war reveals how the promises of honor and the security of love can rescue souls and restore faith.
Lee, Chang-Rae. A Gesture Life. The secret life of a Japanese-American pharmacist in a small town in
New York. On the surface a model of propriety and serenity, he is torn by memories of his service in
the Japanese army in World War II and the comfort woman he loved and could not save.
Lowery, Margaret. 39 Months at Tule Lake. This book is based on the diary and other primary
sources of Mr. Sheldon Lowery, who worked in the Japanese Segregation Center at Tule Lake,
California from 1943 to 1946. Most accounts of the camps are by evacuees who lived in the camps
or people who came to observe them. This account provides another perspective, though, of a staff
member who worked in the internment camps.
Namioka, Lensey. Mismatch. Their families clash when a Japanese-American teenaged boy starts
dating a Chinese-American teenaged girl.
Okada, John. No-no Boy: A Novel. AIchiro is put in a very unusual situation - because of his past
decisions a lot of his peers do not accept him as Japanese or American. This story tells of Ichiro's
struggle to find direction after being held in an internment camp for two years.
Otsuka, Julie. When the Emperor Was Divine. Otsuka's commanding debut novel paints a portrait of
the Japanese internment camps unlike any previously written--a haunting evocation of a family in
wartime and an unmistakably resonant lesson for our times.
Patneaude, David. Thin Wood Walls. When the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, Joe Hamada and his
family face growing prejudice, eventually being torn away from their home and sent to a relocation
camp in California, even as his older brother joins the United States Army to fight in the war.
Rizzuto, Rahna Reiko. Why She Left Us. This novel tells the story of three generations of a JapaneseAmerican family whose lives are tragically affected by the Second World War when they are
interned in camps in the American West.
Uchida, Yoshiko. Journey Home. After their release from an American concentration camp, a
Japanese-American girl and her family try to reconstruct their lives amidst strong anti-Japanese
feelings which breed fear, distrust, and violence.
Wartkski, Maureen. Candle in the Wind. A hate crime in Boston brings together first and second
generation Japanese Americans and a feisty grandmother who journeys from Japan.
Japanese Short Stories, Plays, Poems, Overviews, etc.
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Sasaki, Ruth. The Loom and Other Stories. (Japanese Americans)
Yamamoto, Hisaye. Seventeen Syllables: 5 Stories of Japanese American Life.
Jewish Novels/Memoirs
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Bat-Ami, Miriam. Two Suns in the Sky: A Novel. Summer, 1944. World War II is raging in Europe.
Fifteen-year-old Adam, a Yugoslavian Jew, has escaped, along with his mother and younger sister, to
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the safety of a refugee camp in Upstate New York. Christine, whose house is near the camp, sees in
Adam's past all of the excitement and drama missing from her own life. The moment the two first see
each other, they know they are meant to be together. Their parents refuse to even accept the
possibility. Will their love prevail over the narrow-mindedness of the adults around them?
Delbanco, Nicholas. What Remains. A novel of flight set at the end of World War II follows a GermanJewish family on their painful exodus to America from a shattered European continent.
Ducovny, Amram. Coney. On the eve of World War II, Brooklyn boy Harry Catzker finds fellowship
among the freaks and low-lifes of Coney Island as he considers the nature of art, philosophy, and
politics until a disaster changes his life.
Jackson, Livia Bitton. Hello America. Autobiography of 18yr. old Elli and her mother who survive
Auschwitz and come in 1951 to live with relatives in New York.
Gilmore, Jennifer. Golden Country. Chronicles the lives of three Jewish immigrants in New York
between the 1920s and 1960s--a salesman, a Broadway producer, and a would-be actress--whose
families are linked by childhood ties and, later, the Mob. Captures the texture of the Jewish immigrant
experience: the terrible disappointments, delusions and disillusions, the ambition, hard work, family
life, success and failure, compromises, sacrifice, and the limitless hope offered in this Goldene medina,
this golden country.
Goldreich, Gloria. Leah’s Journey. Leah and her husband flee from pogroms in Russia to New York City
where her family goes through a series of changes.
Haber, Leo. The Red Heifer. The main character of Leo Haber's debut novel grows to sexual and social
awareness amid old-world Yiddish-speaking rabbis, new-world mobsters, Jewish non-believers,
musicians, ballplayers, and new waves of immigrants. The novel teems with unforgettable characters
who grapple with traditional values and the cultural enticements of their new goldene medine (new
land). The problem of Jewish survival in a free society informs every aspect of the novel, with the
ancient law of the red heifer serving as the central metaphor.
Jackson, Livia Bitton. Hello America. Elli Friedman's bond with her mother is as close as when they
protected each other in Auschwitz and survived the refugee camps. This is an autobiography of
Holocaust survivors (18 yr. old Elli Friedman and her mother) who move in with family in Brooklyn, NY
in 1951. Still shaken from their harrowing experiences during the war, mother and daughter are fragile,
yet hopeful as they step onto American soil.
Lasky, Kathryn. Dreams in the Golden Country. Twelve-year-old Zippy, a Jewish immigrant from Russia,
keeps a diary account of her family's life on the lower east side of New York at the turn of the century.
Levitin, Sonia. Silver Days. 13-year-old Lisa experiences the tribulations of growing up in 1940s in New
York City as a Jewish refugee. The book conveys the strength and spirit that enabled the family to not
only survive being uprooted from their comfortable home in Germany, but also to make a new life for
themselves.
Levitt, Paul. Come with Me to Babylon. This stirring novel of Jewish immigration from a Russian shtetl
to early twentieth-century New York challenges the clichés of the golden promised land and shows the
grim reality not only of the daily struggle to survive but also of how the dream of success could lead to
corruption and heartbreak. Told from constantly switching multiple viewpoints, the focus is on Ben
Cohen, who is close to the radical humanism of his dad. Ben is passionately in love with a Gentile, Irina,
but he is pushed by his tough mother to marry the daughter of the rich Jewish factory owner, who will
give Ben a job as manager. Given that his sister lost her speech when she was burned in the Triangle
Shirtwaist Factory fire, Ben has strong misgivings about becoming a sweatshop boss. Then Irina gets
pregnant. Nothing is simple. Strong-willed Mama is the one who gets the family to leave Russia.
Idealistic Papa does not work. Drawing on Levitt's family stories and steeped in Yiddish idiom, the
unforgettable personal drama of secrets and sacrifice is an elemental immigrant story of the journey to
Babylon. (from Booklist)
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Manseau, Peter. Songs for the Butcher's Daughter. Fleeing violent anti-Semitism in Russia and then in
Poland in the 1920s, Yiddish poet Itzik Malpesh stepped off the boat in New York at age 16 in the
Golden Land, “alone, with nowhere to go and no way to get there.” Now, in his 90s and living in
Baltimore, he employs a 21-year-old religious scholar to translate his memoirs into English. Far from
your usual immigrant journey to the promised land, the intricate narrative weaves together Malpesh’s
account of his “life and crimes,” including his job scrubbing floors, with the translator’s discoveries of
the poet’s secret life, then and now. Always on Malpesh’s journeys what sustains him is the story of his
birth during a pogrom, when Sasha, the ritual butcher’s daughter, just four years old, chased away the
killers and saved the baby. Ever since being told of the girl's courageous feat, his romantic obsession
has been to find Sasha––until she arrives in America in the 1930s, a tough, beautiful, Hebrew-speaking
Israeli, who despises Yiddish and the old ways and tells him what really happened. Rooted in the sharp,
bittersweet Yiddish tradition reminiscent of Isaac Bashevis Singer, Manseau’s thrilling tale of secrets
and revelations captures the diversity among Jews, then and now, in shtetl, city, and kibbutz, and the
elemental meaning of bashert, or destiny. Like the translator in the story, the writer Manseau is not
Jewish. (from Booklist)
Napoli, Donna. The King of Mulberry Street. Drawing on her grandfather's experience, Napoli
dramatizes a seldom-told bit of American history in this story of Italian Jewish young people in the
1890s. Beniamino, who lives in Napoli, is only nine years old when his beloved, poverty-stricken Mama
bribes someone to hide him away on a cargo ship to America. His lively, immediate first-person
narrative recalls the trauma of separation and the brutal struggle on the New York streets, where,
renamed "Dom," he makes two Italian friends, and they start a business selling sandwiches. He keeps
his Jewish identity secret, even as he tries to follow kosher rules. Always his dream is to return home.
The characters are drawn with depth, especially the three kids, and the unsentimental story is honest
about the grinding poverty and the prejudice among various immigrant groups. Most moving is the
story of letting go, as Dom confronts the fact that Mama sent him away, and America is now his home.
Nixon, Joan Lowry. Land of Hope. Rebekah, a fifteen-year-old Jewish immigrant arriving in New York
City in 1902, almost abandons her dream of getting an education when she is forced to work in a
sweatshop.
Orner, Peter. Esther Stories. This collection presents 34 stories that span America. Though the physical
territory covered is broad, the emotional probing of the characters is the high point here. The book is
divided into four parts: the first two concern the lives of unrelated strangers; the last two present two
assimilated Jewish families, one on the East Coast, the other in the Midwest.
Ozick, Cynthia. Heir to the Glimmering World. James A'bair, whose father is the author of the popular
series "The Bear Boy," has taken in the eccentric Mitwisser family and the orphaned Rose Meadows,
who must resist the pull of the actual Bear Boy, in a novel of Depression-era New York.
Potok, Chaim. The Chosen. In 1940s Brooklyn, NY, an accident throws Reuven Malther and Danny
Saunders together. Despite their differences (Reuven is a Modern Orthodox Jew with an intellectual,
Zionist father; Danny is the brilliant son and rightful heir to a Hasidic rebbe), the young men form a
deep, if unlikely, friendship. Together they negotiate adolescence, family conflicts, the crisis of faith
engendered when Holocaust stories begin to emerge in the U.S., loss, love, and the journey to
adulthood. The book is filled with the intellectual and spiritual clashes between fathers, between each
son and his own father, and between the two young men. This warm and wise story captures the
timeless themes of fathers and sons, faith, loyalty, and, ultimately, the power of love.
Powers, Richard. The Time of Our Singing. Follows the marriage of David Strom, a German Jewish
émigré scientist, and Della Daley, an African American singer, as they, along with their extraordinarily
gifted children, struggle to overcome the racial injustices of the 1960s.
 Reyn, Irina. What Happened to Anna K: A Novel. A retelling of Anna Karenina set in New York
City's contemporary Russian-Jewish immigrant community.
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Roth, Henry. Call It Sleep. A novel of Jewish life in New York's Lower East Side in the early 1900s.
David Schearl is an overwrought, phobic, and dangerously imaginative little boy. He has come to
New York with his East European Jewish parents, and now, in the years between 1911 and 1913,
he is exposed, shock by shock, to the blows of slum life.
Sachs, Marilyn. Lost in America. Coming home after a sleepover, Nicole, a young French girl,
finds her home ransacked and discovers that the Gestapo has seized her parents and sister.
Terrified and alone, she is forced to seek out an estranged aunt who agrees to keep her. After
the Nazi occupation of France ends in 1944, Nicole emigrates to join relatives in New York -- not
that they really want her -- and she struggles to find work, friends, and a home of her own. The
history is authentic and leaves a deep impression, revealing that many Americans felt untouched
by the war and didn't want to know about it.
Sucher, Cheryl Pearl. The Rescue of Memory. Rachel Wallfisch, the daughter of Holocaust
survivors, grows up in 1960s New York, torn between the admonition to "never forget" and the
desire to establish her own independence as an adult.
Tal, Eve. Double Crossing. In 1905, as life becomes increasingly difficult for Jews in Ukraine,
eleven-year-old Raizel and her father flee to America in hopes of earning money to bring the
rest of the family there, but her father's health and Orthodox faith become barriers.
Tal, Eve. Cursing Columbus. In 1907, fourteen-year-old Raizel, who has lived in New York City for
three years, and her brother Lemmel, newly-arrived, respond very differently to the challenges
of living as Ukrainian Jews in the Lower East Side as Raizel works toward fitting in and getting
ahead, while Lemmel joins a gang and lives on the streets.
Ulinich, Anya. Petropolis. In 1992, Sasha Goldberg, an awkward, biracial Jewish fourteen-yearold in Siberia, finds love with a homeless high school dropout, clashes with her mother, and
escapes to the U.S. as a mail-order bride. From there it's off to Chicago, where, as the "pet
Soviet Jew" of a rich Orthodox couple, Sasha trades one kind of servitude for another. One more
escape lands our heroine in Brooklyn, in search of her father, who abandoned the family when
she was an infant. For a girl from a bleak Siberian town, protagonist Sasha has a surprisingly big
heart and a hysterical view of life in America. Petropolis is a compassionate and unusual novel
about motherhood, immigration, and religious fanaticism.
Widmer, Eleanor. Up from Orchard Street. Three generations live together in a crowded
tenement on the lower East Side of New York City.
Yezierska, Anzia. Bread Givers. A rabbi's daughter rebels against traditional Jewish immigrant
society by living on her own and supporting herself.
Jewish Short Stories, Plays, Poems, Overviews, etc.
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Gribov, Yefim (Director). We Are Going to America [video recording]. A tragi-comic story of a
Russian-Jewish family's journey out of the shtetl and into all the unknowns of the U.S, told from
the eyes of 11 uyr. old Motl.
Steinberg, Ellen. Irma: a Chicago Woman’s Story, 1871-1966. Irma Rosenthal Frankenstein was
born in Chicago of German Jewish parents who had come to the U.S. shortly after the Civil War.
In her diaries, she documents her family’s activities during the Chicago Fire, the city’s rebuilding,
early educational curricula in the city’s schools, what it was like to participate in the suffrage
movement and vote for the first time, the effect of the Great Depression on the middle class,
and World War II as seen from her perspective. (Book Cover)
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Wolman, Ruth E. Crossing Over: an Oral History of Refugees from Hitler’s Reich. Tells the story
of several families of Jewish professionals who escaped from the Holocaust to the United States.
The author’s parents are one of the couples featured in the book.
Jordanian Novels/Memoirs
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Abu-Japer, Diana. Arabian Jazz. A small, poor-white community in upstate New York becomes
home to the transplanted Jordanian family of Matussem Ramoud: his grown daughters,
Jemorah and Melvina; his sister Fatima; and her husband, Zaeed. The widower Matuseem loves
American jazz, kitschy lawn ornaments, and, of course, his daughters. Fatima is obsessed with
seeing her nieces married—Jemorah is nearly thirty! Supernurse Melvina is firmly committed to
her work, but Jemorah is ambivalent about her identity and role. Is she Arab? Is she American?
Should she marry and, if so, whom?
Korean Novels/Memoirs
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Choi, Susan. The Foreign Student. Tells the story of a young Korean man, who narrowly escaped
death in his war-torn country, and a Tennessee woman haunted by sexual abuse as they find
solace, comfort, and hope in each other.
Kim, Patti. A Cab Called Reliable. A Korean girl, newly immigrated to the US, struggles to
transcend the chaos of a strange land and of a violent, overstressed family.
Lee, Chang-Rae. Native Speaker. Henry Park, a Korean-American private spy, is challenged by a
new assignment to investigate a rising politician, but the secrets he uncovers threaten his
cultural identity and his relationship with his wife.
Lee, Marie. Finding My Voice. As she tries to enjoy her senior year and choose which college
she will attend, Korean American Ellen Sung must deal with the prejudice of some of her
classmates and pressure from her parents to get good grades.
Lee, Marie. Necessary Roughness. Sixteen-year-old Korean American Chan moves from Los
Angeles to a small town in Minnesota, where he must cope not only with racism on the football
team but also with the tensions in his relationship with his strict father.
Lee, Marie. Saying Goodbye (Sequel to Finding My Voice). Ellen Sung explores her interest in
creative writing and in her Korean heritage during her freshman year at Harvard.
Lee, Min Jin. Free Food for Millionaires. Casey Han is a Princeton grad, class of '93, and it is her
conflicts, relationships, and temperament that inform the novel. She is the child of immigrant
Korean parents who work in the same laundry in Queens where they have always worked and
are trying hard to hang on to their culture. Casey has catapulted out of that life on scholarships
but now that college is over, she hasn't the same opportunities as her white friends, even
though she has acquired all of their expensive habits.
Na, An. A Step from Heaven. A young Korean girl and her family find it difficult to learn English
and adjust to life in America.
Na, An. Wait for Me. As her senior year in high school approaches, Mina yearns to find her own
path in life, but working at the family business, taking care of her little sister, and dealing with
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her mother's impossible expectations are as stifling as the southern California heat, until she
falls in love with a man who offers a way out.
Park, Linda Sue. Project Mulberry. While working on a project for an after-school club, Julia, a
Korean American girl, and her friend Patrick learn not just about silkworms, but also about
tolerance, prejudice, friendship, patience, and more. Between the chapters are short dialogues
between the author and main character about the writing of the book.
Woo, Sung. Everything Asian. Young David Kim reunites with the father he has not seen in five
years while working in the family strip-mall gift shop, an endeavor during which he harbors a
secret shame about what he believes to be his father's character flaws.
Yoo, Paula. Good Enough. Patti’s story relates growing up with immigrant parents, confronting
racism, and how she finds success and happiness
Korean Short Stories, Plays, Poems, Overviews, etc.
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Fenkl, Heinz Insu and Walter K. Lew. Kori: The Beacon Anthology of Korean American Fiction.
Pak, Ty. Moonbay. Short stories. (Korean Americans).
Lebanese Novels/Memoirs
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Erian, Alica. Towelhead. When Jasira begins to attract older men, her mom ships her off to live
with her Lebanese father, whom Jasira has never liked. Thirteen-year-old Jasira wants what
every girl wants: love and acceptance and the undivided attention of whoever she's with. And if
she can't get that from her parents, then why not from her mother's boyfriend, or her father's
muscle-bound neighbor, Mr. Vuoso? Jasira's pain consumes the novel so fully that it overwhelms
political symbolism and it is her straightforward, understated voice that gives power to this
heartbreaking, utterly realistic story.
Ward, Patricia Sarrafian. The Bullet Collection. This novel is a sharply drawn, moving story
about a family in exile. Marianna is 18 when her family - her older sister, Alaine; her Lebanese
mother and her American father - flee their upper-class home in Beirut for the U.S. in the 1980s.
In Beirut, the cryptic, self-contained Alaine had been the difficult daughter; she was depressed
and attempted suicide. For much of her youth, she kept a macabre collection of bullets,
shrapnel and other war mementos. Second daughter, Marianna, had idolized her, and at the
same time felt it was her duty to be cheerful and spare her parents more worry. When the
family moves to its sagging, shabby American house, the sisters reverse roles: Marianna finds
their reduced circumstances and unfamiliar surroundings unbearable. She can barely get out of
bed and feels betrayed when Alaine merrily immerses herself in home improvement projects,
determined to adjust to their new future. Marianna narrates the story, weaving episodes from
their lives in Beirut with scenes of their present-day struggles in the U.S. Author Ward paints a
vivid picture that will be familiar to exiles everywhere: the father, a historian in Beirut, applying
for a manager's job at the local supermarket; the familiar traditional meals that taste ineffably
different in the new country; the parents gamely trying to rally their children's spirits while liable
themselves to burst into tears or sink unexpectedly into grim silence. (From Amazon.com)
Moore, Sam. American by Choice: The Remarkable Fulfillment of an Immigrant’s Dream. Sam
Moore is the CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers. He arrived in America in 1950 with $600 in his
pocket and dreams of success. In this autobiography, he reflects on growing up in Lebanon and
how the countless hours of work required to build his multimillion dollar company.
Mexican Novels/Memoirs
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Anaya, Rudolfo. Bless Me Ultima. Antonio Marez is six years old when Ultima enters his life. She
is a curandera, one who heals with herbs and magic. 'We cannot let her live her last days in
loneliness,' says Antonio's mother. 'It is not the way of our people,' agrees his father. And so
Ultima comes to live with Antonio's family in New Mexico. Soon Tony will journey to the
threshold of manhood. Always, Ultima watches over him. Under her wise guidance, Tony will
probe the family ties that bind him, and he will find in himself the magical secrets of the pagan
past—a mythic legacy equally as palpable as the Catholicism of Latin America in which he has
been schooled. At each turn in his life there is Ultima who will nurture the birth of his soul.
Baca, Jimmy Santiago. A Glass of Water. When a young Mexican couple, Casimiro and Nopal,
cross the border in 1984, their new life begins promisingly: they find work on a Texas farm and
build a stable home for their two sons, Lorenzo and Vito. But before the boys reach adulthood,
Nopal is murdered and her killer escapes. The family struggles to go on, with Lorenzo eventually
taking over his father's farm duties and settling down with Carmen, a college student studying
migrant workers. Vito's restless spirit leads him to fight in amateur boxing matches and to
everyone's surprise, he shows a tantalizing level of talent and considers a serious fighting career.
But even as the brothers find their own measures of success, they are haunted by the injustice
of Nopal's murder. Interspersed with Lorenzo and Vito's lives are glimpses of Casimiro's youth
and even Nopal's thoughts from the world beyond. A general sense of social and political unrest
permeates this passionate story.
Bertrand, Diane Gonzales. Sweet Fifteen. When seamstress Rita Navarro makes a quinceanera
dress for fourteen-year-old Stefanie, she finds herself becoming involved with the girl's family
and attracted to the girl's uncle. .
Boyle, T. Coraghessan. The Tortilla Curtain. When a wealthy California nature writer
accidentally hits an illegal Mexican immigrant with his car, both of tier lives are changed
dramatically.
Breslin, Jimmy. The Short Sweet Dream of Eduardo Gutierrez. Chronicles the life and tragic
death of Eduardo Guitérrez, an illegal immigrant worker who was killed in an accident at a
construction site in New York City in November, 1999.
Canales, Viola. The Tequila Worm. Sofia grows up in the close-knit community of the barrio in
McAllen, Texas, and then finds that her experiences as a scholarship student at an Episcopal
boarding school in Austin only strengthen her ties to family and her "compadres."
Castillo, Ana. The Guardians. This gripping novel tracks the perilous lives of Mexicans who
illegally cross to the U.S. for work. At once shatteringly realistic and dramatically mystical,
Castillo's incandescent novel of suffering and love traces life's movement toward the light even
in the bleakest of places.
Chacon, Daniel. And the Shadows Took Him. In the barrio of Fresno, California, the Molina
family is living out the Chicano version of the American Dream. Father William works on an
assembly line while his wife, the well-bred beauty Rachel, stays at home to care for their three
children--and to keep them off the streets. But when William is offered an opportunity to enter
the ranks of the middle class, he quits his job, packs up the Ford Maverick, and transports the
Molinas to a brand-new world: the small town of Medford, Oregon. So begins the dramatic
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transformation of youngest son and aspiring actor Joey, who assumes the role of a vato loco
gang member in order to win the respect and fear of his gringo classmates. While Joey tries to
make himself popular with tall tales of guns and glory, his father embarks on a bitter struggle to
develop his career and combat age-old cultural stereotypes. How William's extraordinary efforts
and deepening despair affect the lives of his loved ones is at the heart of this haunting and
incandescent novel--one destined to become a classic.
Cisneros, Sandra. Caramelo. During her family's annual car trip from Chicago to Mexico City,
Lala Reyes listens to stories about her family, including her grandmother, the descendant of a
renowned dynasty of shawl makers, whose magnificent striped (or caramelo) shawl has come
into Lala's possession, in a multi-generational saga of a Mexican-American family.
Corbett, David. Do They Know I'm Running? Eighteen-year-old Roque Montalvo must travel
from California’s East Bay to El Salvador to help Tio Faustino illegally reenter the U.S. Faustino
has been arrested in an illegal-immigration sweep in Oakland and immediately deported.
Faustino’s son has made the arrangements for passage with MS-13, the Salvadoran
multinational gang. But Roque soon learns that he must also shepherd a mysterious Arab as well
as rescue Lupe, a beautiful, terrified, embittered, young Salvadoran woman, who is to be given
to a psychotic MS-13 lieutenant en route. The journey is perilous, but so, author Corbett makes
clear, is life for illegal aliens in California. Corbett is covering familiar ground (Blood of Paradise,
2007), but in this powerful, evocative, character-driven novel, he has written what should be a
breakout success. What drives Corbett’s characters to risk death, violent gangs, ICE, armed
“Minutemen,” deportation, and life as fugitives in the U.S. As the Arab says to Lupe: “Yes, there
is little hope in the world. But without America, there is none. Despite everything, you will have
a chance.” Readers who devour and then forget formulaic crime novels won’t soon forget this
one. (from Booklist)
Gonzalaz, Rigaberto. Crossing Vines: A Novel. A look at the family feuds, economic injustices,
and racism prevalent in the migrant worker experience.
Grande, Reyna. Across a Hundred Mountains. Juana, 11, loses her baby sister in a flood, and the
death sets off a chain of tragic events: her father heads north from their small Mexican town ;
Juana's newborn baby brother is claimed by the town money lender; and Juana's mother
descends into alcoholism and violence. At 14, Juana leaves to look for her father, from whom
they have heard nothing. On her painstaking journey, she meets Adelina Vasquez, an American
runaway working as a prostitute in Tijuana, who takes Juana in. The narrative switches off
between young Juana's viewpoint, and that of Andelina, now 31.
Hart, Elva Trevino. Barefoot Heart: Stories of a Migrant Child. Hart's expressive and remarkably
affecting memoir concerns her childhood as the daughter of Mexican immigrants who worked
as migrant workers to feed their six children. In 1953, when she was only three, her parents took
the family from Texas to work in the fields of Minnesota and Wisconsin for the first time, only to
find that in order to comply with the child labor law they had to leave the author and her 11year-old sister to board in a local Catholic school, where they pined for the rest of the family.
Hobbs, Will. Crossing the Wire. Fifteen-year-old Victor Flores journeys north in a desperate
attempt to cross the Arizona border and find work in the United States to support his family in
central Mexico.
Jaramillo, Ann. La, Linea. When Miguel, 15, leaves San Jacinto, Mexico, to join his parents in
California, his sister, Elena, 13, secretly follows him. Together with their guides they barely
survive a harrowing journey through the desert and across la linea, the border.
Lachtman, Ofelia Dumas. The Girl from Playa Blanca. When Elena and her little brother Carlos
leave their Mexican seaside village to search for their immigrant father in Los Angeles, they
encounter intrigue, crime, mystery, friendship, and love.
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Lachtman, Ofelia Dumas. Looking for La Única. When a mysterious and valuable guitar is stolen
from the shop belonging to old friends of her family, Monica is determined to find out what
really happened and to uncover the guitar's well-kept secret.
Lagasse, Mary Helen. The Fifth Sun. Mercedes, disowned by her father after becoming pregnant
at the age of fifteen, leaves her home in Mexico to take a job as a maid in New Orleans where
she marries and works to provide a better life for herself and her children.
Martínez, Manuel Luis. Crossing. After his father dies, Luis hides in a boxcar with fifteen other
men hoping to cross the Mexican border, but when their food and water run out, the men turn
violent, and Luis struggles to find the strength to survive.
Paulsen, Gary. The Crossing. Manny is a Mexican street boy in Juarez, an orphan who survives
by using his wits and his speed against violence, starvation and death. His only chance to survive
means crossing the Rio Grande to the U.S., an incredibly dangerous undertaking for a young boy
alone. Robert is a sergeant in the Army, haunted by memories of his friends, gruesomely killed
in Vietnam. His whole life consists of being a good officer during the day and surviving his
haunted nights by drinking himself into oblivion. Manny and Robert meet when the sergeant is
being sick behind a bar and Manny tries to lift his wallet. Manny doesn't succeed, but this is the
beginning of a relationship, brief and brutal, which leads to the sergeant's death and Manny's
chance for survival. Author Paulsen creates a stark, moving portrait of Mexican poverty and
street life, of the desperation facing those who attempt "the crossing." Like the relationship
between Robert and Manny, this book is brief and brutal but ends on a note of hope.
Resau, Laura. Red Glass. One night Sophie and her parents are called to a hospital where Pedro,
6-year-old Mexican boy, is recovering from dehydration. Crossing the border into Arizona with a
group of Mexicans and a coyote, Pedro and his parents faced such harsh conditions that the boy
is the only survivor. Pedro comes to live with Sophie, her parents, and Sophie's Aunt Dika, a
refugee of the war in Bosnia. Sophie loves Pedro, but after a year, Pedro's surviving family in
Mexico makes contact, and Sophie and her family must travel with Pedro to his hometown so
that he can make a heartwrenching decision.
Rodriquez, Luis J. Music of the Mill. The Salcido family, immigrants to the United States from
Mexico, struggle to reconcile their need for jobs at the mighty Nazareth steel mill in Southern
California with the low pay, back-breaking labor, and harsh treatment they receive--a situation
that weighs most heavily on twenty-year-old Johnny, a second-generation mill worker.
Ruiz, Ronald L. Giuseppe Rocco. Italian immigrant Giuseppe Rocco pulls himself up from poverty
to become the richest man in San Jose but never buys a business suit and continues to prefer
the company of Mexican workers to the governor of the state. His experience is contrasted with
that of young Sally Martinez, a Mexican American who also attempts to pull herself and her
family out of poverty.
Ryan, Pam Muñoz. Becoming Naomi León: a novel. When Naomi's absent mother resurfaces to
claim her, Naomi runs away to Mexico with her great-grandmother and younger brother in
search of her father.
Ryan, Pam Munz. Esperanza Rising. Esperanza and her mother are forced to leave their life of
wealth and privilege in Mexico to go work in the labor camps of Southern California, where they
must adapt to the harsh circumstances facing Mexican farm workers on the eve of the Great
Depression.
Santana, Patricia. Motorcycle ride on the Sea of Tranquility. Growing up with her large Mexican
American family in San Diego in the late 1960s, fourteen-year-old Yolanda tries to help her
favorite brother Chuy, a Vietnam veteran, who has returned from the war and is suffering
emotional problems.
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Saldaña, Jr., René. The Jumping Tree. Rey, a Mexican American living with his close-knit family
in a Texas town near the Mexican border, describes his transition from boy to young man.
Sitomer, Alan Lawrence. The Secret Story of Sonía Rodríguez. 16 year old Sonia grapples with
demands of schoolwork and the needs of her immigrant family as she pursues her dream of
attending college.
Villarreal, José Antonio. Pocho. Villarreal illuminates here the world of "pochos," Americans
whose parents come to the United States from Mexico. Set in Depression-era California, the
novel focuses on Richard, a young pocho who experiences the intense conflict between loyalty
to the traditions of his family's past and attraction to new ideas. Richard's struggle to achieve
adulthood as a young man influenced by two worlds reveals both the uniqueness of the
Mexican-American experiences and its common ties with the struggles of all Americans -whatever their past.
Villaseñor, Victor. Macho! The story of 17 yr. old Robert Garcia's journey from the state of
Michoacan, Mexico, to his illegal entry into the U.S. His backbreaking work in the vegetable
fields of California and the workers' divided sentiments over Cesar Chavez's efforts to unionize
the workers are chronicled in a style that many critics have compared to John Steinbeck. This is
the novel of the conflict of spiritual, social, and economic values during the coming of age of a
young Mexican.
Villasenor, Victor. Rain of Gold. Describes the parallel stories of two families and two
countries…bringing us the timeless romance between the volatile bootlegger who would
become the author’s father and the beautiful Lupe, his mother–men and women in whose lives
the real and the fantastical exist side by side…and in whose hearts the spirit to survive is fueled
by a family’s unconditional love.
Villasenor, Victor. Walking Stars: Stories of Magic and Power. Autobiographical stories about
growing up as the son of Mexican immigrants in California.
Mexican Short Stories, Plays, Poems, Overviews, etc.
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Rice, David. Crazy Loco. "Short stories inspired by the author's Mexican-American childhood in a
small town in South Texas. Like the best short fiction, they reveal their deepest truths obliquely,
in the details of small moments and gestures. In the title story, a boy names his dog Crazy Loco-a wonderful, casual illustration of the characters' constant bilingual shifts between cultures.
There are family struggles too: in "Her Other Son," a boy registers both the tensions and the
"deep rhythms of comfort and peace" in his family. There are sexy scenes of first kisses and
frightening moments with the border police. Author Rice blends humor and precise detail,
creating believable, imperfect, complex characters that are at once rowdy, subversive, and
devoted to family and tradition." (From Booklist)
Estevis, Anne. Down Garrapata Road. A collection of short stories set in a small MexicanAmerican community in southern Texas during the 1940s and 1950s, revealing the traditions,
love, and social concerns of the families living there.
Valdez, Luis, editor. Aztlan: An Anthology of Mexican American Literature.
Rodriguez, Luis. The Republic of East L.A.: short stories.
Soto, Gary. The Effects of Knut Hamsun on a Fresno Boy: Recollections and Short Essays.
Soto, Gary. Help Wanted: stories.
Soto, Gary. Petty Crimes. A collection of short stories about Mexican American youth growing
up in California.
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Cisneros, Sandra. Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories: short stories.
Soto, Gary. Nerdlandia: a play.
Valdez, Luis. Zoot Suit and Other Plays.
Jacobo, Jose-Rodolfo. Los Braceros: Memories of Bracero Workers 1942-1964. Interviews
(primary sources) with Mexican Americans who worked in the U. S. under the guest worker
Bracero Program.
Nigerian Novels/Memoirs
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Williams-Garcia, Rita. No Laughter Here. In Queens, New York, ten-year-old Akilah is
determined to find out why her closest friend, Victoria, is silent and withdrawn after returning
from a trip to her homeland, Nigeria.
Norwegian Novels/Memoirs
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Rolvaag, Ole E. Giants in the Earth: A Saga of the Prairie. The classic story of a Norwegian
pioneer family's struggles with the land and the elements of the Dakota Territory as they try to
make a new life in America.
Pakistani Novels/Memoirs
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Naqvi, H.M. Home Boy. Three young Pakistani men in New York City gain a measure of fame
and success thanks to Chuck, whose job on Wall Street opens doors to the social scene, but they
find the mood of the country greatly changed when they set out in the weeks after the attack on
the World Trade Center in search of the Shaman. This story of immigrant life, ambivalence, and
identity is, by turns, comic and sad.
Palestinian Novels/Memoirs
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Hanania, Ray. I'm Glad I Look Like a Terrorist: Growing Up Arab in America. Explores the
experience of one Palestinian Arab American and his life growing up on Chicago's South Side, his
service in the US Military during the Vietnam War, his beginning career in journalism covering
Chicago City Hall, and his expansion into politics and media consulting. Arab-Jewish relations in
Chicago and the Chicagoland area and how Arabs were treated in America before Sept. 11, 2001
are described.
Polish Novels/Memoirs
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Friesner, Esther. Threads and Flames. It's 1910 and Raisa has just traveled alone from a small
Polish shtel all the way to New York City. She is enthralled, overwhelmed and even frightened,
especially when she discovers that her sister has disappeared and she must now fend for
herself.
Pietrzyk, Leslie. Pears on a Willow Tree. The story of a Polish-American family told by four
generations of its women. From Rose, the immigrant who holds bedrock values, to Helen who
tolerates them, to Ginger who rejects them, to Amy who yearns for them.
Shea, Suzanne Strempek. Hoopi Shoopi Donna. A Polish American family in Massachusetts
adopts a niece from Poland and the result is a family crisis. Donna, the accordion-playing, polkadancing American daughter becomes resentful of the attention lavished on her Polish cousin.
The story is narrated by Donna with dry and biting humor.
Shea, Suzanne Strempek. Selling the Lite of Heaven. A young woman from a Polish Catholic
family in Massachusetts falls in love with Eddie, get a beautiful engagement diamond called the
Lite of Heaven. Shortly before the wedding, Eddie realizes he's destined to be a priest, but tells
our young heroine to keep the diamond. She spends the next 17 months interviewing
perspective buyers for the ring. This humorous story gives an insight into the society of the first
and second generational Polish Catholics.
Peruvian Novels/Memoirs
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Arana, Marie. American Chica: Two Worlds: One Childhood. In her father’s Peruvian family,
Marie Arana was taught to be a proper lady, yet in her mother’s American family, she learned to
shoot a gun, break a horse, and snap a chicken’s neck for dinner. She shuttled easily between
these deeply separate cultures for years. But only when she immigrated with her family to the
United States did she come to understand that she was a hybrid American whose cultural
identity was split in half.
Puerto Rican Novels/Memoirs
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Black, Timothy. When a Heart Turns Rock Solid: The Lives of Three Puerto Rican Brothers On
and Off the Streets. Through the Rivera family, Black examines the interplay of economics and
social policy that has made it more difficult for low-income Americans to progress into the
middle class. Black explores the troubled history of the U.S. and Puerto Rico, as well as the
decline of the industrial base at a time when the nation was cracking down on crime and drug
addiction. Sociology, economics, history–and powerful human emotions–are all layered in this
fascinating look at poverty and the life of one American family. (from Booklist)
Cofer, Judith Ortiz. Call Me Maria. Fifteen-year-old Maria leaves her mother and their Puerto
Rican home to live in the barrio of New York with her father, feeling torn between the two
cultures in which she has been raised.
Quiñonez, Ernesto. Bodega Dreams. Chino, a promising young Latino, finds himself drawn into
the dangerous world of Willy Bodega, ruler of Spanish Harlem, and torn between his loyalties to
his pregnant Pentecostal wife and the promises of the barrio ringleader.
Santiago, Esmeralda. Almost a Woman: A Memoir. At thirteen, Negi yearns for her own bed,
privacy, and a life with her father, who remains in Puerto Rico. Translating for Mami at the
welfare office in the morning, starring as Cleopatra at New York's prestigious Performing Arts
High School in the afternoons, and dancing salsa all night, she yearns to find balance between
being American and being Puerto Rican.
Santiago, Esmeralda. When I Was Puerto Rican. Santiago's artful memoir recounts her
childhood in rural Puerto Rico and her teenage years in New York City.
Santiago, Esmeralda. America's Dream. America Gonzalez, a hotel housekeeper on an island off
the coast of Puerto Rico, is worried about her mother's drinking and fearful of her abusive
married lover, but it is her daughter's impulsive decision to run away with her boyfriend that
pushes America to the limits of her ability to cope. When a vacationing couple from
Westchester, New York, offers her a job, she decides to leave the tropical island where she has
always lived.
Puerto Rican Short Stories, Plays, Poems, Overviews, etc.
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Cofer, Judith Ortiz. An Island Like You
Cofer, Judith Ortiz. The Year of Our Revolution. A collection of poems, short stories and essays
addressing the theme of straddling two cultures as do the offspring of Hispanic parents living in
the United States.
Mohr, Nicholasa. El Bronx Remembered. Novella and short stories.
Russian Novels/Memoirs
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Bloom, Amy. Away. Lillian Leyb travels to America alone, hoping to create a new life for herself
after losing her family back in Russia, but when she learns her daughter may be alive, Lillian
embarks on a journey that takes her around the world in search of love and redemption.
Blue, Rose. Cold Rain on the Water. A 16-year-old Russian Jew and his family face challenges
and problems in America.
Manseau, Peter. Songs for the Butcher's Daughter. Fleeing violent anti-Semitism in Russia and
then in Poland in the 1920s, Yiddish poet Itzik Malpesh stepped off the boat in New York at age
16 in the Golden Land, “alone, with nowhere to go and no way to get there.” Now, in his 90s and
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living in Baltimore, he employs a 21-year-old religious scholar to translate his memoirs into
English. Far from your usual immigrant journey to the promised land, the intricate narrative
weaves together Malpesh’s account of his “life and crimes,” including his job scrubbing floors,
with the translator’s discoveries of the poet’s secret life, then and now. Always on Malpesh’s
journeys what sustains him is the story of his birth during a pogrom, when Sasha, the ritual
butcher’s daughter, just four years old, chased away the killers and saved the baby. Ever since
being told of the girl's courageous feat, his romantic obsession has been to find Sasha––until she
arrives in America in the 1930s, a tough, beautiful, Hebrew-speaking Israeli, who despises
Yiddish and the old ways and tells him what really happened. Rooted in the sharp, bittersweet
Yiddish tradition reminiscent of Isaac Bashevis Singer, Manseau’s thrilling tale of secrets and
revelations captures the diversity among Jews, then and now, in shtetl, city, and kibbutz, and
the elemental meaning of bashert, or destiny. (from Booklist)
Reyn, Irina. What Happened to Anna K: A Novel. A retelling of Anna Karenina set in New York
City's contemporary Russian-Jewish immigrant community.
Sachs, Marilyn. Call Me Ruth. The daughter of a Russian immigrant family, newly arrived in
Manhattan in 1908, has conflicting feelings about her mother's increasingly radical union
involvement.
Shteyngart, Gary. The Russian Debutante’s Handbook. Vladimir Girshkin, a likeable Russian
immigrant, searches for love, a decent job, and a self-identity. With a doctor-father of
questionable ethics and a manic, banker mother, Vladimir avoids his suburban parents and their
desire that he pursue the almighty dollar as proof of success.
Ulinich, Anya. Petropolis. In 1992, Sasha Goldberg, an awkward, biracial Jewish fourteen-yearold in Siberia, finds love with a homeless high school dropout, clashes with her mother, and
escapes to the U.S. as a mail-order bride. From there it's off to Chicago, where, as the "pet
Soviet Jew" of a rich Orthodox couple, Sasha trades one kind of servitude for another. One more
escape lands our heroine in Brooklyn, in search of her father, who abandoned the family when
she was an infant. For a girl from a bleak Siberian town, protagonist Sasha has a surprisingly big
heart and a hysterical view of life in America. Petropolis is a compassionate and unusual novel
about motherhood, immigration, and religious fanaticism.
Zabytko, Irene. When Luba Leaves Home. Searching for her own identity apart from her
poverty-stricken Ukrainian family in Chicago, Luba attends a local college where the tumult of
1968 envelops her, but she soon finds she cannot leave her family completely behind.
Russian Short Stories, Plays, Poems, Overviews, etc.
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Gribov, Yefim (Director). We Are Going to America [video recording]. A tragi-comic story of a
Russian-Jewish family's journey out of the shtetl and into all the unknowns of the U.S, told from
the eyes of 11 uyr. old Motl.
Salvadoran – Novels/Memoirs
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Bencastro, Mario. A Promise to Keep. Sixteen-year-old Sergio, struggling to honor his
grandfather's wish to be buried in El Salvador, undertakes a journey filed with unexpected
disasters, triumphs, and the memory of his beloved Abuelo.
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Bencastro, Mario. Odyssey to the North. Years of civil war and the prospect of imprisonment
cause Callixto to leave his native El Salvador for a new life in the United States. But, after
completing the dangerous journey northward, he must confront the reality of surviving in a
strange and hostile culture.
Garcia, Christina. A Handbook to Luck. Birds grace the pages of Garcia's most transfixing and
moving novel to date, emblems of transcendence and hope in defiance of the gravity of fate. As
in her earlier novels, including Monkey Hunting (2003), Garcia writes from several points of view
as she tells unpredictably linked stories of people in flight from oppression during the 1970s and
1980s. Young Enrique Florit accompanies his exuberantly flamboyant and talented Cuban
magician father, Fernando, as he flees Castro and the wrath of his late wife's family, seeking
fame and fortune in Hollywood and Las Vegas. As war ravages El Salvador, Marta Claros, whose
brother lives in a tree, leaves her abusive husband and bravely makes her way to California,
where she finds sanctuary with a kind Korean factory owner. Leila Rezvani allows herself a brief
interlude of pleasure in Las Vegas before returning to Tehran and a disastrous arranged
marriage. Garcia's vital characters cope with exile, violence, and crushed dreams as they
struggle toward love and freedom. As Garcia constructs concentric worlds of conflict and
longing, discerns cultural paradoxes and human contrariness, and writes rhapsodically of
nature's beauty, life emerges as a cosmic game of chance under luck's misrule. (from Booklist)
Scottish – Novels/Memoirs
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Miner, Valerie. The Low Road: A Scottish Family Memoir. Author Valerie Miner chronicles her
family's migration from Edinburgh's tenements to America, focusing on the life journey of her
grandmother, her mother, and herself.
Slovak Novels/Memoirs
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Alzo, Lisa A. Three Slovak Women. Three Slovak Women is a nonfiction account of three
generations of Slovak women in the steel-producing town of Duquesne, Pennsylvania and the
love and sense of family binding them together.
Bell, Thomas. Out of This Furnace: A Novel of Immigrant Labor in America. Spanning three
generations of a Slovak family, Bell's novel recounts the struggles and triumphs of immigrants
working and living among the steel mills of Braddock, Pennsylvania.
Sri Lankan Novels/Memoirs
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Ganeshananthan, V. V. Love Marriage: A Novel. Several generations of a Sri Lankan family
touched by the country's civil war confront the limits of ethnic and familial allegiance in
Ganeshananthan's forceful but patchy debut. First-generation American Yalini, daughter of Sri
Lankan Tamil parents Vani and Murali, is an awkward 22-year-old who has spent her youth
burdened by family secrets from their lives before emigration. Confronted with her enigmatic
dying uncle, Kumaran, who had a shadowy role in Sri Lanka's insurgent Tamil Tigers, Yalini is
driven to examine her relatives' marriages as a means of figuring out their alliances and her own
unsettled identity. Her parents fell in love in New York and escaped arranged marriages back
home; her grandparents, aunts and uncles have their own stories; Kumaran's 18-year-old
daughter chooses to wed a Tamil Tiger financier. Written in short blocks of text, the book is
structured as a kind of day book where Yalini records her progress. Repetitions create a
meditative mood, but dull the book's emotional core and make emphasis on marriage seem
forced. The most vivid character, Rajie, the daughter of an old family friend, appears only briefly.
And the issues that plague Yalini remain vague until the last third of the novel, when the
narrative suddenly takes on real power. (from Booklist)
Sudanese Novels/Memoirs
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Applegate, Katherine. Home of the Brave. Kek, a young Sudanese refugee, is haunted by guilt
that he survived. He saw his father and brother killed, and he left his mother behind when he
joined his aunt's family in Minnesota.
In fast, spare free verse, this novel communicates the immigrant child's dislocation and loss as
he steps off the plane in the snow.
Asgedom, Mawi. Of Beetles and Angels. An unforgettable true story of a young boy's
remarkable journey from a refugee camp in Sudan to an affluent Chicago suburb where his
family survives on welfare. .
Deng, Alephonsion, et al. They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky: The True Story of Three Lost
Boys from Sudan. This is three boys' account of an unimaginable journey from Sudan to
Ethiopia, back to Sudan and toward Kenya as they sought refuge from the massacres in their
own country.
Deng, Alephonsion, et al. Courageous Journey: Walking the Lost Boys’ Path from the Sudan to
America. Traces the lives of two young boys from Sudan, Ayuel Leek and Beny Ngor Chol, who
flee persecution in the form of starvation and violence, walk to Ethiopia, survive in refugee
camps, and eventually reach the United States, where they are mentored in college so they can
achieve their goal of helping other Sudanese.
Swedish Novels/Memoirs
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Cather, Willa. O Pioneers. Swedish immigrant, Alexandra Bergson arrives on the Hanover,
Nebraska prairie as a girl and grows up to make it a prosperous farm with her devotion to the
land. This strong, independent woman endures family resentment, conflict and tragic loss
before finally finding love for herself.
Moberg, Vilhelm. The Emigrants. Karl Nilsson, his wife Kristina, their children, and Karl's young
brother, Robert, join the vast exodus from Sweden in the 1850's to the American frontier.
Nixon, Joan Lowry. Land of Dreams. As Kristin Swensen anxiously awaits her first glimpse of
America, she is filled with a sense of the freedom that her new life promises. But she soon finds
herself living on a farm in Minnesota where her parents and neighbors cling as closely as
possible to the life they had known in Sweden.
Taiwanese Novels/Memoirs
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Bloom, Amy. Away. Lillian Leyb travels to America alone, hoping to create a new life for herself
after losing her family back in Russia, but when she learns her daughter may be alive, Lillian
embarks on a journey that takes her around the world in search of love and redemption.
Togolese Novels/Memoirs
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Kassindja, Fauziya. Do You Hear When They Cry? "For Fauziya Kassindja, an idyllic childhood in
Togo, West Africa, sheltered from the tribal practices of polygamy and genital mutilation, ended
with her beloved father's sudden death. Forced into an arranged marriage at age 17, Fauziya
was told to prepare for kakia, the ritual known as genital mutilation...." "...This is her story - told
in her own words - of fleeing Africa just hours before the ritual kakia was to take place, of
seeking asylum in America only to be locked up in U.S. prisons, and of meeting an American law
student who became her friend and advocate during her horrifying 16 months behind bars.
Ultimately, in a landmark decision in immigration history, Fauziya was granted asylum on June
13, 1996." (from back cover of book)
Vietnamese Novels/Memoirs
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Cao, Lin. Monkey Bridge. Mai and her mother escape from Vietnam in 1975 and begin to
navigate the almost incomprehensible culture of the U.S.
Gadbow, Kate. Pushed to Shore. Janet Hunter, divorced and lonely, accepts the challenge of
teaching displaced Vietnamese and Hmong teenagers who have been scarred physically and
emotionally by the Vietnam War. She attempts to give them hope and becomes their champion
as she tries to explain American culture and the animosity of some high school students toward
them.
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Letts, Billie. The Honk and Holler Opening Soon. A Crow woman named Vena Takes Horse
appears at the door of the Honk and Holler cafe wearing red cowboy boots and carrying a
severely injured dog. Caney could see that "she was trouble" but gave her a job, thus changing
his life forever. Bui Khanh, a Vietnamese immigrant, arrives sometime after Vena and in broken
English also asks for work. He becomes more than a short-order cook; he helps free Caney from
his terrible nightmares.
Schraff, Anne. Memories are Forever. A Vietnamese-American girl tries to reconcile her family's
culture with her growing interest in an American boy and his way of life.
Strom, Dao. Grass Roof, Tin Roof. In 1975, Tran, a Vietnamese writer facing government
persecution, flees her homeland with her two children and seeks refuge in the West, where she
marries a Danish-American man with his own memories of another war.
Thuy, Le Thi Diem. The Gangster we Are All Looking For. In 1978 six refugees — a girl, her
father, and four “uncles” — boat people from Vietnam — begin a new life in San Diego.
Truong, Thao. Tha Muc. Novella about an elderly man who tries to adapt to a new life in
America.
Wartski, Maureen. A Long Way from Home. A 15-year-old Vietnamese refugee having difficulty
adjusting to the strange ways and language of the United States and his adoptive home runs
away to a Vietnamese fishing community hoping he can "belong" there. A sequel to A Boat to
Nowhere.
Garland, Sherry. In the Shadow of the Dragon. High school sophomore Danny Vo tries to
resolve the conflict between the values of his Vietnamese refugee family and his new American
way of life.
Sutter, Valerie O'Connor. The Indo-Chinese Refugee Dilemma. Sutter opens this study by
comparing the American responses to the 1956 exodus from Hungary and to the post-1975
flight from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. The Indochinese refugee issue is viewed from the
perspectives of several countries that provided temporary asylum (Thailand, Malaysia,
Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Hong Kong) and that of the U.S. as a major donor and
resettlement country. While examining related humanitarian concerns, Sutter gives special
attention to the performance of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, the leading
coordinating agency mandated to protect and assist refugees. The light here shed on the
complexity of the issue worldwide (some 14 million refugees are currently in need of assistance)
leaves the impression that escaping persecution is less difficult than finding permanent asylum.
Vietnamese Short Stories, Plays, Poems, Overviews, etc.
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Dinh, Linh. Fake House. Shorts stories about Vietnamese Americans.
Welsh Novels/Memoirs
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Leiner, Katherine. Digging Out. As a child, Alys Davies survived a mining tragedy in the
small Welsh town where she was born. It shattered the village and destroyed her family.
Each victim sought their own escape. For Alys it was to flee to the United States where
she could rebuild her life. Now, a new tragedy unfolds in Alys's life, forcing her to face
her demons. Grieving for her past, Alys decides to return to Wales.
West Indian Novels/Memoirs
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Guy, Rosa. The Friends. Phyllisia, a West Indian immigrant, eventually recognizes that her own
selfish pride rather than her mother's death and her father's tyrannical behavior created the gulf
between her and her best friend.
Kincaid, Jamaica. Lucy. A young Caribbean woman emigrates from Antigua to work for a
wealthy and unhappy couple in the United States. At age 19, Lucy is bright and observant but
bitter - still angry at her mother and obsessed with unresolved issues of her past.
Yemeni Short Stories, Plays, Poems, Overviews, etc.
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Sarroub, Loukia K. All American Yemeni Girls: Being Muslim in a Public School. Through
interviews and study of a Michigan community, the author examines Yemeni American teenage
girls and their thoughts about being Yemeni, Muslim, American, daughters of immigrants and
high school students. The final chapter of the book offers an important discussion of how
conditions in the U.S. may encourage the rise of extremism and allow it to flourish, raising
pressing questions about the role of public education in the post-9/11 world. (Book Cover)
Literary Collections
Asians (Short Stories, Plays, Poems, Overviews, Etc.)
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Bacho, Peter. Dark Blue Suit and Other Stories.
Bloom, Harold, editor. Asian-American Women Writers. Overview.
Bruchac, Joseph. Breaking Silence: An Anthology of Contemporary Asian American Poets.
Carlson, Lori, editor. American Eyes: New Asian American Short Stories for Young Adults.
Hongo, Garrett, editor. The Open Boat: Poems from Asian America.
Hong, Maria, editor. Growing Up Asian American: An Anthology.
Houston, Valina, editor. But Still, Like Air, I'll Rise: New Asian American Plays.
Hwang, David. FOB and Other Plays.
Lee, Don. Yellow.
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Lee, Joanne, editor. Asian American Experiences in the United States: Oral Histories of First to
Fourth Generation Americans from China, the Philippines, Japan, India, the Pacific Islands,
Vietnam, and Cambodia.
Lee, Li-Young. Book of My Nights: Poems.
Leong, Russell. Phoenix Eyes and Other Stories.
Lew, Walter, editor. Premonitions: the Kaya Anthology of New Asian North American Poetry.
Lim, Shirley, editor. Reading the Literatures of Asian America. Overview.
Rustomji-Kerns, Roshni, editor. Living in America: Poetry and Fiction by South Asian American
Writers.
Tabios, Eileen. Black Lightning: Poetry-in-Progress.
Wong, Janet. A Suitcase of Seaweed and Other Poems.
Yep, Laurence, editor. American Dragons: Twenty-Five Asian American Voices.
Sutter, Valerie O'Connor. The Indo-Chinese Refugee Dilemma. Sutter opens this study by
comparing the American responses to the 1956 exodus from Hungary and to the post-1975
flight from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. The Indochinese refugee issue is viewed from the
perspectives of several countries that provided temporary asylum (Thailand, Malaysia,
Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Hong Kong) and that of the U.S. as a major donor and
resettlement country. While examining related humanitarian concerns, Sutter gives special
attention to the performance of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, the leading
coordinating agency mandated to protect and assist refugees. The light here shed on the
complexity of the issue worldwide (some 14 million refugees are currently in need of assistance)
leaves the impression that escaping persecution is less difficult than finding permanent asylum.
Hispanics (Short Stories, Plays, Poems, Overviews, Etc.)
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Flakoll, D. J. New Voices of Hispanic America: An Anthology
Mora, Pat. My Own True Name: New and Selected Poems for Young Adults
Augenbrau, Harold, editor. The Latino Reader: An American Literary Tradition from 1542 to
the Present.
Lopez, Tiffany, editor. Growing Up Chicana/o: 20 Chicana/o Authors Write about Childhood.
Tashlik, Phyliss, editor. Hispanic, Female and Young: An Anthology.
Poety, Delia, editor. Iguana Dreams: New Latino Fiction.
Kanellos, Nicolas, editor. Short Fiction by Hispanic Writers of the United States.
Augenbraum, Harold, editor. Growing Up Latino: Memoirs and Stories.
Aparicio, Frances, editor. Latino Voices: A Collection of Latino Fiction, Poetry, and Biography.
Nava, Yolanda, editor. It's All in the Frijoles: 100 Famous Latinos Share Real-Life Stories, TimeTested Dichos, Favorite Folktales, and Inspiring Words of Wisdom.
Stavens, Ilan, editor. Wachale!: Poetry and Prose about Growing Up Latino in America.
Svich, Caridad, editor. Out of the Fringe: Contemporary Latina/Latino Theatre and
Performance.
Osborne, Elizabeth, editor. On New Ground: Contemporary Hispanic-American plays.
Blanco, Richard. City of a Hundred Fires : poetry.
Alvarez, Julia. Homecoming: New and Collected Poems.
Alvarez, Julia. The Other Side: El Otro Lado - poetry.
Cisneros, Sandra. My Wicked, Wicked Ways: poems.
Milligan, Bryce, editor. Floricanto si!: A Collection of Latina Poetry.
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Gonzalez, Ray, editor. Touching the Fire: Fifteen Poets of Today's Latino Renaissance.
Augenbrau, Harold, editor. U.S. Latino literature: A Critical Guide for Students and Teachers.
OVERVIEW
Bloom, Harold, editor. Hispanic-American Writers. OVERVIEW
Kanellos, Nicolas, editor. The Hispanic Literary Companion. OVERVIEW
Kanellos, Nicolas, editor. The Hispanic-American Almanac: A Reference Work on Hispanics in
the United States. OVERVIEW.
Kanellos, Nicolas, editor. Thirty Million Strong: Reclaiming the Hispanic Image in American
Culture. OVERVIEW
Cafferty, Pastora, editor. Hispanics in the United States: An Agenda for the Twenty-First
Century. OVERVIEW
Peck, David, editor. American Ethnic Writers. Overview.
Peck, David, editor. American Ethnic Literatures. Overview.
Multicultural Sources
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Libman, Jeff. An Immigrant Class: Oral Histories from Chicago’s Newest Immigrants.
Documents the immigrant experience through 20 first-person stories and photographs of recent
immigrants to Chicago from around the world. Each immigrant reveals the unique elements of
life before immigration, the circumstances that motivated the move, the experience of
immigrating, and the impressions of life and identity that continue to unfold and change in the
United States. Includes interviews with immigrants from Burkina Faso, Guatemala, Romania,
Cuba, Afghanistan, Peru, Belarus, India (Tibet), Colombia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Sudan, Brazil,
Chile, Iraq, Mexico, Albania, Argentina, Iran, and Haiti.
Danquah, Meri Nana-Ama. Becoming American: Personal Essays by First Generation
Immigrant Women.
Gruber, Ruth. Haven: the Dramatic Story of 1,000 World War II Refugees and How They Came
to America. Recounts President Roosevelt's decision to allow 1,000 Jewish and Christian
refugees from Italy entrance into the U.S. in 1944. Includes their 18 month internment at a
former army camp in Oswego, NY. and the Congressional decision that enabled the refugees to
become American citizens.
Hutner, Gordon, ed. Immigrant Voices: Twenty-Four Narratives on Becoming an American.
Sources by Topic
Business
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Carbajal, Frank. Building the Latino Future: Success Stories for the Next Generation. Inspiring
stories of dozens of men and women who, despite humble beginnings, meager resources, and
limited opportunities, beat the odds and rose to become leaders in their professions.
Bender, Steven. Greasers and Gringos: Latinos, Law and the American Imagination . Examines
stereotypes of Latinos in popular cuture. Reveals how negative images have contributed
significantly to the often unfair treatment of Latinos under American law by the legal system.
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Arlene, Davila. Latinos, Inc.: The Marketing and Making of a People. Both Hollywood and
corporate American are taking note of the marketing power of the growing Latino population in
the United States.
Mass Media (Movies, Television, Theater, Etc.)
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Stevens, Donald, ed. Based on a True Story: Latin American History at the Movies
The Bronze Screen: Chicana and Chicano Film Culture
Heroes, Brothers, and Others: The Story of Latinos in Hollywood
Hispanics and United States Film: An Overview and Handbook
Hispanics in Hollywood
Jose, Can You See?: Latinos on and off Broadway
Latin Looks: Images of Latinas and Latinos in the U.S. Media
Latino/a Popular Culture
Latino/a Rights and Justice in the United States: Perspectives and Approaches
Latino Images in Film: Stereotypes, Subversion, Resistance
Politics
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America's Colony: The Political and Cultural Conflict between the United States and Puerto
Rico
Minutemen: The Battle to Secure America's Borders
Sports
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American Son: My Story by Oscar de la Hoya
Latinos in Béisbol
New Face of Baseball: The One-Hundred-Year Rise & Triumph of Latinos in America's Favorite
Sport
Sports and the Racial Divide: African American and Latino Experience in an Era of Change
Stealing Lives: The Globalization of Baseball and the Tragic Story of Alexis Quiroz
12 Rounds with Oscar de la Hoya