Books

A generation before Brown v. Board of Education struck down America's "separate but equal" doctrine, one Chinese family and an eccentric Mississippi lawyer fought for desegregation in one of the greatest legal battles never told. On September 15, 1924, Martha Lum and her older sister Berda were barred from attending middle school in Rosedale, Mississippi. The girls were Chinese American and considered by the school to be "colored"; the school was for whites. This event would lead to the first US Supreme Court case to challenge the constitutionality of racial segregation in Southern public schools, an astonishing thirty years before the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision.

Is race only about the color of your skin? In The Latinos of Asia, Anthony Christian Ocampo shows that what "color" you are depends largely on your social context. Filipino Americans, for example, helped establish the Asian American movement and are classified by the U.S. Census as Asian. But the legacy of Spanish colonialism in the Philippines means that they share many cultural characteristics with Latinos, such as last names, religion, and language. Thus, Filipinos' "color"— their sense of connection with other racial groups— changes depending on their social context.

Conventionally, US immigration history has been understood through the lens of restriction and those who have been barred from getting in. In contrast, The Good Immigrants considers immigration from the perspective of Chinese elites--intellectuals, businessmen, and students--who gained entrance because of immigration exemptions. Exploring a century of Chinese migrations, Madeline Hsu looks at how the model minority characteristics of many Asian Americans resulted from US policies that screened for those with the highest credentials in the most employable fields, enhancing American economic competitiveness.

Undertaken by the Korean Centennial Foundation to celebrate 100 years of Korean immigration to the United States, this book of essays, poetry, fiction and photographs of art is a complex tribute to a diaspora, mixing cultural history and emotive recollection. Arranged chronologically, the works begin in a chapter named "Land of Morning Calm," with the writings of Younghill Kang, the first Korean-American novelist. Folk songs, a photograph of the last queen of Korea (1851-1995) and quotes from an oral history of women who immigrated to Hawaii follow, along with portraits, objects like quilts and fans, and wooden dragons from the Honolulu Academy of the Arts.

A brilliant first collection of the work of frequent NPR contributor, journalist, and Pacific News Service Editor Andrew Lam. He uses his work over the last two decades to explore his life as an American and to return to his Vietnamese heritage. His truggle and that of a million other Vietnamese expatriates is much the same as many others who belong to two countries. His insights point out the unique situation of today and what it is like to go home.

Although the popular image of Hawai'i is of an idyllic paradise, the islands are, in fact, home to one of the largest military arsenals in the world. Hawai'i is a vital American strategic possession, holding the dubious distinction of being America's most militarized state. Non-natives have written the histories of Hawai'i, built its war monuments, constructed its museum exhibits, and depicted its people in Hollywood films. By these media, militarism is often presented as beneficial and natural, and the US military depicted as a welcome, protective force, which provides security and order. However, islanders' views on the subject are more complicated than this. While some are patriotically supportive, and others indifferent, a growing section of the community views US forces with the hostility of people under military rule. In this book, Brian Ireland analyses how and why this situation came to be.

After her mother dies unexpectedly of cancer, a Chinese American writer and journalist weaves together the story of the fallout of grief that follows her extended family as they emigrate from China and Hong Kong to Cuba and America.

A powerful memoir by 25-year-old Ly Tran about her immigrant experience and her recent family history in the aftermath of the war that spans from Vietnam to Brooklyn, and ultimately to the Ivy League. Ly Tran was just a toddler in 1993 when she and her family immigrated from a small town along the Mekong River in Vietnam to an apartment in Queens. Ly's father, a former lieutenant in the South Vietnamese army, spent nearly a decade as a POW, and their resettlement is made possible through a humanitarian program run by the US government. Torn between two worlds, Ly knows she must honor her parent's Buddhist faith and contribute to the family livelihood, while feeling pressure to blend in at school. Who is she outside of everything her family expects of her?

In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother's particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother's tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food.

As she grew up, moving to the East Coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, and performing gigs with her fledgling band--and meeting the man who would become her husband--her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live. It was her mother's diagnosis of terminal cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.

Takei's firsthand account of years spent in a Japanese concentration camp, the joys and terrors of growing up under legalized racism, his mother's hard choices, his father's faith in democracy, and the way those experiences planted the seeds for his astonishing future.

Mary Paik Lee left her native country in 1905, traveling with her parents as a political refugee after Japan imposed control over Korea. Her father worked in the sugar plantations of Hawaii briefly before taking his family to California. They shared the poverty-stricken existence endured by thousands of Asian immigrants in the early twentieth century, working as farm laborers, cooks, janitors, and miners. Lee recounts racism on the playground and the ravages of mercury mining on her father’s health, but also entrepreneurial successes and hardships surmounted with grace.

For as long as she can remember, it's been Robin and her mom against the world. Growing up as the only child of a single mother in Seoul, Korea, wasn't always easy, but it has bonded them fiercely together. So when a vacation to visit friends in Huntsville, Alabama, unexpectedly becomes a permanent relocation--following her mother's announcement that she's getting married--Robin is devastated. Overnight, her life changes. She is dropped into a new school where she doesn't understand the language and struggles to keep up. She is completely cut off from her friends in Seoul and has no access to her beloved comics. At home, she doesn't fit in with her new stepfamily, and worst of all, she is furious with the one person she is closest to--her mother. Then one day Robin's mother enrolls her in a local comic drawing class, which opens the window to a future Robin could never have imagined.

Meet the Ganguli family, new arrivals from Calcutta, trying their best to become Americans even as they pine for home. The name they bestow on their firstborn, Gogol, betrays all the conflicts of honoring tradition in a new world—conflicts that will haunt Gogol on his own winding path through divided loyalties, comic detours, and wrenching love affairs.

In The Namesake, the Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri brilliantly illuminates the immigrant experience and the tangled ties between generations.

Interpreter of Maladies: Stories

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, this stunning debut collection unerring charts the emotional journeys of characters seeking love beyond the barriers of nations and generations. In stories that travel from India to America and back again, Lahiri speaks with universal eloquence to everyone who has ever felt like a foreigner.

A witty and irresistible celebration of one very cool and boundary-breaking mom's "Indian-ish" cooking--with accessible and innovative Indian-American recipes. Indian food is everyday food! This colorful, lively book is food writer Priya Krishna's loving tribute to her mom's "Indian-ish" cooking--a trove of one-of-a-kind Indian-American hybrids that are easy to make, clever, practical, and packed with flavor.

Vibrant and unexpected, The Juhu Beach Club Cookbook brings the outsized opinions and culinary daring of Preeti Mistry, chef/owner of Oakland's Juhu Beach Club, to the page. Influenced by her background as a second-generation Indian -- born in London, raised across the US, now based in the Bay Area -- Preeti's irreverent style informs her personality and her food.

A casual and practical guide to grilling with Korean-American flavors from chef Bill Kim of Chicago's award-winning BellyQ restaurants, with 80 recipes tailored for home cooks with suitable substitutions for hard-to-find ingredients.

The Korean Vegan

"Korean dishes, some traditional and some reimagined, from the home cook and storyteller behind @thekoreanvegan on TikTok"--

Korean cooking is synonymous with fish sauce and barbecue, and veganism remains extremely rare in Korean culture. Many of the ingredients are fully plant-based and unbelievably flavorable, and Korean plant-based eating is not a new idea: vegan cuisine prepared by Korean Buddhist monks has been around for more than a thousand years.