Understanding Immigration

Migration Policy Institute Timeline

As a group, explore these resources and learn about your specific immigrant group as well as others. Take notes (be sure to note the source) in your notebook.

1. Immigration History Exploration Via Interactive Maps
   • NY Times History
     • In note-book patterns and trends by time-period
     • Look for either your country or countries near your country - take notes
   1. Map Migration (world)
   2. Immigration to US since 1820
   3. State by State Map
   4. DACA Map
   5. Most Common Country of Origin Groups
      • Slate
      • Most Immigrants Other Then Mexico
   6. Largest Groups Since 1960

IMMIGRATION STORIES BOOK LIST

*Student Favorites of What Has Been Read

✐ New Addition This Year

AFRICA

• ✐Behold the Dreamers - Imbolo Mbue (Cameroon)
• *What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng – Dave Eggers (South Sudan)
• *Americanah - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria)
• *Ghana Must Go - Taiye Selasi (Ghana)
• The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears - Dinaw Megestun (Ethiopia)
• *We Need New Names - NoViolet Bulawayo (Zimbabwe)
• Foreign Gods, Inc. - Okey Ndibe (Nigeria)
• Open City - Teju Cole (Nigeria)
• Happiness is Like Water - Chinelo Okparanta (Nigeria)
• *All Our Names - Dinaw Megestu (Uganda)
• The Good Braider - Terry Farish (Sudan)

NORTH, CENTRAL, SOUTH AMERICA, CARIBBEAN

• ✐The Distance Between Us: A Memoir - Reyna Grande (Mexico)
• ✐American Street - Ibi Zoboi (Haiti)
• ✐Drown - Junot Díaz (Dominican Republic)
• ✐My (Underground) American Dream: My True Story as an Undocumented Immigrant Who Became a Wall Street Executive - Julissa Acre (Mexico)
• Caramelo – Sandra Cisneros (Mexico)
• *How the García Girls Lost Their Accents – Julia Alvarez (Dominican Republic)
• When I was Puerto Rican – Esmeralda Santiago (Puerto Rico)
• *Enrique’s Journey – Sonia Nazario (author Argentina, book Honduras)
• The Line of the Sun – Judith Ortiz Cofer (Puerto Rico)
• *The Book of Unknown Americans - Cristina Henríquez (Mexico)
• The Secret Side of Empty - Maria E. Andreu (Argentina)
• Lucy - Jamaica Kincaid (West Indies)
• The Mambo King Sings Songs of Love: A Novel - Oscar Hijuelos (Cuba)
• Brown Girl, Brownstones - Paule Marshall (Barbados)
• *The Devil’s Highway: A True Story - Luis Alberto Urrea (Mexico)
  • NPR Interview with Terri Gross
• The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue - Manuel Muñoz (Mexico)
• Burro Genius: A Memoir - Victor Villaseñor (Mexico)
• Lucky Boy - Shanti Sekaran (Mexico)
• Brother, I’m Dying - Edwidge Dandicat (Haiti)

CENTRAL, SOUTH, EAST ASIA

• ✐The Refugees - Viet Thanh Nguyen (Vietnam)
• ✐Dragonfish - Vu Tran (Vietnam)
• ✐Threading My Prayer Rug - Sabeeha Rahman
• ✐Love, Hate and Other Filters - Samira Ahmed (India)
• Native Speaker – Chang-Rae Lee (Korea)
• *The Namesake – Jhumpa Lahiri (India)
• *Grass Roof, Tin Roof – Dao Strom (Vietnam)
• *Girl in Translation – Jean Kwok (Taiwan)
• *American Son – Brian Ascalon Roley (Philippines)
• China Boy – Gus Lee (China)
• Funny in Farsi - Firoozeh Dumas (Iran)
• The Walking - Saleh Khadavi (Iran)
• *Typical American - Gish Jen (China)
• Mona in the Promised Land - Gish Jen (Chinese)
• Sari of the Gods - G.S. Sharat Chandra (India)
• Acts of Faith: The Story of An American Muslim, in the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation - Eboo Patel (India)
• A Free Life - Ha Jin (China)
• An American Brat - Bapsi Sidhwa (Pakistan)
• Together Tea - Marjan Kamali (Iran)
• Donald Duk - Frank Chin (China)
• We Should Never Meet - Aimee Phan (Vietnam)
• Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet - Jamie Ford (China and Japan)
• The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir - Kao Kailia Yang (Laos)
• The Fortune - Peter Ho Davies (China)
• Bento Box in the Heartland: My Japanese Girlhood in Whitebread America - Linda Furiya (Japan)
• Saffron Dreams - Shaila Abdulah (Pakistan)
• The Fortunes - Peter Ho Davies (China)

WEST ASIA/NORTH AFRICA

(Often referred to as the Middle East, which centers Western (Europe and the US) experience; sometimes referred to as the Arab world, but not all people identify as Arab)

• *Zeitoun – Dave Eggers (Syria)
• *How Does it Feel to be a Problem? : Being Young and Arab in America - Moustafa Bayoumi (Multiple Countries of Origin)
• Bint Arab: Arab and Arab American Women in the United States – Evelyn Shakir (author from Lebanon)
• Loom: a Novel by Thérèse Soukar Chehade (Lebanon)
• Remember Me to Lebanon by Evelyn Shakir (Lebanon)
• *Looking for Palestine: Growing Up Confused in an Arab-American Family - Najla Said (Palestine/Lebanon)
• We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh Immigrants Shape Our Multiracial Future - Deepa Iyer (Multiple Countries of Origin)
• The Bastard of Istanbul - Elif Shafak (Turkey/Armenian)

EUROPE

• ✐In America - Susan Sontag (Poland)
• ✐Immigrant Train and Other Stories - Natalie Petesch (Poland)
• ✐A Dream of Kings - Harry Mark Petrakis (Greek)
• *If You Eat, You Never Die – Tony Romano (Italy)
• Involuntary Genius in America's Shoes: (And What Happened Afterwards) – Andrei Codrescu (Romania)
• The Bread Givers - Anzia Yezierska (Poland)
• My Antonia – Willa Cather (Bohemia)
• *Angela’s Ashes - Frank McCourt (Ireland)
• Nowhere Man - Aleksandar Hemon (Bosnia)
• The Silence of Parents - Susan Simpson Geroe (Romania)
• Call It Sleep - Henry Roth (Austria)
• *My New American Life - Francine Prose (Albania)
• Brooklyn - Colm Tóibín (Ireland)
• The Bastard of Istanbul - Elif Shafak (Turkey/Armenian)
• The Funeral Party - Ludmila Ulitskaya (Russia)
• Her First American - Lore Segal (Austria)
• *The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank - Ellen Feldman (Netherlands)
• Shadows on the Hudson - Isaac Bashevis Singer (Polish)
• Displaced Persons - Ghita Schwarz (Poland)
• The Houseguest - Kim Brooks (Russia)
• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon (Czechoslovakia)
• American Gypsy - Oksana Marifioti (Russian/Roma)
• Girl at War - Sara Novic (Croatia)

Lists

• New York Public Library List