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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorBarefoot Heart: Stories of a Migrant Child
Elva Trevino Hart · 236 pages
Autobiography. Latino/a Studies. BAREFOOT HEART is a vividly told autobiographical account of the life of a child growing up in a family of migrant farm workers. Elva Trevino Hart was born in south Texas to Mexican immigrants and spent her childhood moving back and forth between Texas and Minnesota, eventually leaving that world to earn a master's degree in computer science/engineering. This is a
Stealing Buddha's Dinner
Bich Minh Nguyen · 272 pages
As a Vietnamese girl coming of age in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Nguyen is filled with a rapacious hunger for American identity, and in the pre-PC-era Midwest (where the Jennifers and Tiffanys reign supreme), the desire to belong transmutes into a passion for American food. More exotic- seeming than her Buddhist grandmother's traditional specialties, the campy, preservative-filled "delicacies" of mai
Out of Egypt: A Memoir
Andre Aciman · 339 pages
Set in luxuriant cosmopolitan Alexandria, this richly colored memoir chronicles the exploits of a flamboyant Jewish family from its bold arrival in Egypt at the turn of the century to its defeated exodus three generations later. In elegant and witty prose, Andre Aciman introduces us to the Olympian figures who shaped his life: Uncle Vili, the strutting daredevil, by turns soldier, salesman, Itali
Intolerable: A Memoir of Extremes
Kamal Al-Solaylee · 204 pages
A true story of life in the modern Middle-East spanning the nearly six decades from the nationalism of the 1960s to the Arab Spring of 2011, by a prominent Canadian journalist. In the '60s, Al-Solayee's father was one of the wealthiest property owners in Aden, south of Yemen, but when the country shrugged off its colonial roots, his properties were confiscated. As a gay man living in an intolerant
American Gypsy
Oksana Marafioti · 370 pages
The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood
Richard Blanco · 260 pages
A poignant, hilarious, and inspiring memoir from the first Latino and openly gay inaugural poet, which explores his coming-of-age as the child of Cuban immigrants and his attempts to understand his place in America while grappling with his burgeoning artistic and sexual identities. Richard Blanco’s childhood and adolescence were experienced between two imaginary worlds: his parents’ nostalgic w
A Cup of Water Under My Bed: A Memoir
Daisy Hernandez · 185 pages
*It's 1980. Ronald Reagan has been elected president, John Lennon has been shot, and a little girl in New Jersey has been hauled off to English classes. Her teachers and parents and tias are expecting her to become white--like the Italians.* This is the opening to A cup of water under my bed, the memoir of one Colombian-Cuban daughter's rebellions and negotiations with the women who raised her
When in French: Love in a Second Language
Lauren Collins · 243 pages
"A language barrier is no match for love. Lauren Collins discovered this firsthand when, in her early thirties, she moved to London and fell for a Frenchman named Olivier--a surprising turn of events for someone who didn't have a passport until she was in college. But what does it mean to love someone in a second language? Collins wonders, as her relationship with Olivier continues to grow entirel
God Grew Tired of Us: A Memoir
John Bul Dau, Michael S. Sweeney · 295 pages
"Lost Boy" John Bul Dau's harrowing experience surviving the brutal horrors of Sudanese civil war and his adjustment to life in modern America is chronicled in this inspiring memoir and featured in an award-winning documentary film of the same name. Movingly written, the book traces Dau's journey through hunger, exhaustion, terror, and violence as he fled his homeland, dodging ambushes, massacres
West of Kabul, East of New York: An Afghan American Story
Tamim Ansary, Mir Tamim Ansary · 292 pages
"The day after Islamic terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center, Tamim Ansary of San Francisco sent an anguished e-mail to twenty friends, discussing the attack from his perspective as an Afghan American. That message, spreading via the Internet, reached and touched millions of people around the world." "Now Ansary gives us West of Kabul, East of New York, an account of a life lived in two very
The Illiterate
Agota Kristof · 44 pages
A Border Passage: From Cairo to America--A Woman's Journey
Leila Ahmed · 318 pages
Leila Ahmed grew up in Cairo in the 1940s and '50s in a family that was eagerly and passionately political. Although many in the Egyptian upper classes were firmly opposed to change, the Ahmeds were proud supporters of independence. But when the Revolution arrived, the family's opposition to Nasser's policies led to persecutions that would throw their lives into turmoil and set their youngest chil
A Walker in the City
Alfred Kazin · 176 pages
The acclaimed story of a soul awakening to the ecstasy of the senses, the power of language, and the meaning of existence. Kazin's memorable description of his life as a young man as he makes the journey from Brooklyn to "Americanca"--The larger world that begins at the other end of the subway in Manhattan. A classic portrayal of the Jewish immigrant culture of the 1930s.
Fifth Chinese Daughter
Jade Snow Wong · 264 pages
No well brought up Chinese girl refers to herself in the first person, so the author tells her charming story in the approved Chinese fashion. How, as the fifth daughter of a hard-working Chinese tailor, she and her sisters lived in a San Francisco basement, cutting, sewing, and sorting hundreds of men's overalls for the wholesale market. How she went to school and later, in face of parental oppos
American Chica: Two Worlds, One Childhood
Marie Arana · 320 pages
For years, Arana shuttled easily between her father's aristocratic Peruvian family and her mother's American family. Only when she immigrated to the United States as an adolescent did she come to understand that her cultural identity was split in half. She was a hybrid Hispanic American: a north-south collision, a New World fusion. An American Chica. In her father's Peruvian family, Marie Arana wa
The Tongue Set Free
Elias Canetti · 288 pages
Unpolished Gem
Alice Pung · 286 pages
Colored People
Henry Louis Gates Jr. · 216 pages
Reaching Out
Francisco Jimenez · 196 pages
Leaving his home in a migrant community, Francisco sets off for college, carrying memories of years of poverty and prejudice.
Infidel
Ayaan Hirsi Ali · 353 pages
"Ultimately a celebration of triumph over adversity, Hirsi Ali's story tells how a bright little girl evolved out of dutiful obedience to become an outspoken, pioneering freedom fighter. As Western governments struggle to balance democratic ideals with religious pressures, no story could be timelier or more significant.--From publisher description."--From source other than the Library of Congress
Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter
Adeline Yen Mah · 278 pages
Adeline Yen Mah was born in 1937 in Tianjin, a port city one thousand miles north of Shanghai. She was the fifth and youngest child of an affluent family. Her grand aunt - in an unprecedented achievement - had founded the Shanghai Women's Bank in 1924, and her father was a revered businessman whose reputation for turning iron into gold began when he started his own firm at the age of nineteen. Ye
Laughing Without an Accent: Adventures of an Iranian American, at Home and Abroad
Firoozeh Dumas · 240 pages
In the bestselling memoir Funny in Farsi, Firoozeh Dumas recounted her adventures growing up Iranian American in Southern California. Now she again mines her rich Persian heritage in Laughing Without an Accent, sharing stories both tender and humorous on being a citizen of the world, on her well-meaning family, and on amusing cultural conundrums, all told with insights into the universality of the
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
Marjane Satrapi · 160 pages
Wise, funny, and heartbreaking, Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi’s memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah’s regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent and