AANHPI Heritage Month Book Recommendations
WE ARE THE OCEAN
Written by Epeli Hau'ofa
We Are the Ocean is a collection of essays, fiction, and poetry by Epeli Hau‘ofa, whose writing over the past three decades has consistently challenged prevailing notions about Oceania and prescriptions for its development. He highlights major problems confronted by the region and suggests alternative perspectives and ways in which its people might reorganize to relate effectively to the changing world.
Hau‘ofa’s essays criss-cross Oceania, creating a navigator’s star chart of discussion and debate. Spurning the arcana of the intellectual establishments where he was schooled, Hau‘ofa has crafted a distinctive—often lyrical, at times angry—voice that speaks directly to the people of the region and the general reader. He conveys his thoughts from diverse standpoints: university-based analyst, essayist, satirist and humorist, and practical catalyst for creativity. According to Hau‘ofa, only through creative originality in all fields of endeavor can the people of Oceania hope to strengthen their capacity to engage the forces of globalization.
“Our Sea of Islands,” “The Ocean in Us,” “Pasts to Remember,” and “Our Place Within,” all of which are included in this collection, outline some of Hau‘ofa’s ideas for the emergence of a stronger and freer Oceania. Throughout he expresses his concern with the environment and suggests that the most important role that the “people of the sea” can assume is as custodians of the Pacific, the vast area of the world’s largest body of water.
GUM SAAN TO GOLDEN SPIKE
Written by University of Washington’s (UW) American Ethnic Studies program
Gum Saan to Golden Spike aspires to continue preserving and sharing Asian American history. By recreating the project into the comic novella, the students and artists hope that their art and messages will reach a wider audience of both kids and adults.
Following Wong Ho Ping and his descendants, the comic novella retells the story of why many Southern Chinese — Taishanese and Cantonese — departed South China for the United States in search of Gum Saan, also known as “Gold Mountain.” The migration led to the building of the transcontinental railroad and the fight against labor and economic discrimination.
To escape the devastating effects of the First Opium War, and to make a living for his family, Wong Ho Ping leaves China to search for gold in America. When he arrives, he confronts difficulties ranging from homesickness, U.S. racism, and struggles to earn a living. Eventually, he does find “gold,” but loses some friends in the process.
After Wong Ho Ping returns to China and marries Woo Yu Er, China encounters more turmoil: rebellions against the Qing government, the Second Opium War, and increasing Western colonialism. With limited opportunities, Wong Ho Ping’s son, Wong Sing Dan, is tasked with returning to Gum Saan to help his family make a living. Sing Dan again “searches for gold,” like his father, but not in the literal sense. He seeks to make a living for his family and new wife, Go Ai Ting, and to reconnect with a long lost friend and family member. Through the story of Sing Dan, the novella highlights the difficult decisions pioneering Chinese in America made, and the often forgotten impact those decisions have on their descendants.
PACHINKO
Written by Min Jin Lee
In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger at the seashore near her home in Korea. He promises her the world, but when she discovers she is pregnant--and that her lover is married--she refuses to be bought. Instead, she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son's powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the generations.
Richly told and profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty. From bustling street markets to the halls of Japan's finest universities to the pachinko parlors of the criminal underworld, Lee's complex and passionate characters--strong, stubborn women, devoted sisters and sons, fathers shaken by moral crisis--survive and thrive against the indifferent arc of history.
THE SYMPATHIZER
Written by Viet Thanh Nguyen
It is April 1975, and Saigon is in chaos. At his villa, a general of the South Vietnamese army is drinking whiskey and, with the help of his trusted captain, drawing up a list of those who will be given passage aboard the last flights out of the country. The general and his compatriots start a new life in Los Angeles, unaware that one among their number, the captain, is secretly observing and reporting on the group to a higher-up in the Viet Cong.
CRAZY RICH ASIANS
Written by Kevin Kwan
Crazy Rich Asians is the outrageously funny debut novel about three super-rich, pedigreed Chinese families and the gossip, backbiting, and scheming that occurs when the heir to one of the most massive fortunes in Asia brings home his ABC (American-born Chinese) girlfriend to the wedding of the season.
When Rachel Chu agrees to spend the summer in Singapore with her boyfriend, Nicholas Young, she envisions a humble family home, long drives to explore the island, and quality time with the man she might one day marry. What she doesn't know is that Nick's family home happens to look like a palace, that she'll ride in more private planes than cars, and that with one of Asia's most eligible bachelors on her arm, Rachel might as well have a target on her back.
Initiated into a world of dynastic splendor beyond imagination, Rachel meets Astrid, the It Girl of Singapore society; Eddie, whose family practically lives in the pages of the Hong Kong socialite magazines; and Eleanor, Nick's formidable mother, a woman who has very strong feelings about who her son should—and should not—marry.
Uproarious, addictive, and filled with jaw-dropping opulence, Crazy Rich Asians is an insider's look at the Asian JetSet; a perfect depiction of the clash between old money and new money; between Overseas Chinese and Mainland Chinese; and a fabulous novel about what it means to be young, in love, and gloriously, crazily rich.
PATRON SAINTS OF NOTHING
Written by Randy Ribay
Jay Reguero plans to spend the last semester of his senior year playing video games before heading to the University of Michigan in the fall. But when he discovers that his Filipino cousin Jun was murdered as part of President Duterte's war on drugs, and no one in the family wants to talk about what happened, Jay travels to the Philippines to find out the real story.
Hoping to uncover more about Jun and the events that led to his death, Jay is forced to reckon with the many sides of his cousin before he can face the whole horrible truth -- and the part he played in it.
As gripping as it is lyrical, Patron Saints of Nothing is a page-turning portrayal of the struggle to reconcile faith, family, and immigrant identity.
IN THE COUNTRY
Written by Mia Alvar
The daughter of Korean immigrants, Casey Han has refined diction, a closeted passion for reading the Bible, a popular white boyfriend, and a magna cum laude degree in economics from Princeton, but no job and an addiction to the things she cannot afford in the glittering world of Manhattan. In this critically-acclaimed debut, Min Jin Lee tells not only Casey's story, but also those of her sheltered mother, scarred father, and friends both Korean and Caucasian, exposing the astonishing layers of a community clinging to its old ways and a city packed with struggling haves and have-nots.
SILK, VOL. 2: AGE OF THE WITCH
Written by Emily Kim
Illustrated by Takeshi Miyazawa
Silk is back! Cindy Moon returns as the web-spinning spider-hero in an all-new, all-star series! As Silk gains popularity in the public eye, Cindy begins questioning her place in the world. But existentialism will have to wait — because a powerful new villain has been turned loose! Now, in a race against the clock, Silk will discover the dangers of ancient Korean magic…and social media.
LOVEBOAT, TAIPEI
Written by Abigail Hing Wen
When eighteen-year-old Ever Wong’s parents send her from Ohio to Taiwan to study Mandarin for the summer, she finds herself thrust among the very over-achieving kids her parents have always wanted her to be, including Rick Woo, the Yale-bound prodigy profiled in the Chinese newspapers since they were nine—and her parents’ yardstick for her never-measuring-up life.
Unbeknownst to her parents, however, the program is actually an infamous teen meet-market nicknamed Loveboat, where the kids are more into clubbing than calligraphy and drinking snake-blood sake than touring sacred shrines.
Free for the first time, Ever sets out to break all her parents’ uber-strict rules—but how far can she go before she breaks her own heart?
CRYING IN H MART
Written by Michelle Zauner
Michelle Zauner 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.
NO-NO BOY
Written by John Okada
“No-No Boy has the honor of being the very first Japanese American novel," writes novelist Ruth Ozeki in her new foreword to John Okada’s classic of Asian American literature. First published in 1956, No-No Boy was virtually ignored by a public eager to put World War II and the Japanese internment behind them. It was not until the mid-1970s that a new generation of Japanese American writers and scholars recognized the novel’s importance and popularized it as one of literature’s most powerful testaments to the Asian American experience.
No-No Boy tells the story of Ichiro Yamada, a fictional version of the real-life "no-no boys." Yamada answered "no" twice in a compulsory government questionnaire as to whether he would serve in the armed forces and swear loyalty to the United States. Unwilling to pledge himself to the country that interned him and his family, Ichiro earns two years in prison and the hostility of his family and community when he returns home to Seattle. As Ozeki writes, Ichiro’s "obsessive, tormented" voice subverts Japanese postwar "model-minority" stereotypes, showing a fractured community and one man’s "threnody of guilt, rage, and blame as he tries to negotiate his reentry into a shattered world."
The first edition of No-No Boy since 1979 presents this important work to new generations of readers.
THE GANGSTER WE ARE ALL LOOKING FOR
Written by Lê Thị Diễm Thúy
In 1978 six refugees—a girl, her father, and four “uncles”—are pulled from the sea to begin a new life in San Diego. In the child’s imagination, the world is transmuted into an unearthly realm: she sees everything intensely, hears the distress calls of inanimate objects, and waits for her mother to join her. But life loses none of its strangeness when the family is reunited. As the girl grows, her matter-of-fact innocence eddies increasingly around opaque and ghostly traumas: the cataclysm that engulfed her homeland, the memory of a brother who drowned and, most inescapable, her father’s hopeless rage.
EYES THAT KISS IN THE CORNERS
Written by Joanna Ho
This lyrical, stunning picture book tells a story about learning to love and celebrate your Asian-shaped eyes, in the spirit of Hair Love by Matthew A. Cherry, and is a celebration of diversity.
A young Asian girl notices that her eyes look different from her peers'. They have big, round eyes and long lashes. She realizes that her eyes are like her mother’s, her grandmother's, and her little sister's. They have eyes that kiss in the corners and glow like warm tea, crinkle into crescent moons, and are filled with stories of the past and hope for the future.
Drawing from the strength of these powerful women in her life, she recognizes her own beauty and discovers a path to self-love and empowerment. This powerful, poetic picture book will resonate with readers of all ages.
FRIED RICE AND MARINARA
Written by Mike Yam
Illustrated by Laura Dong
Birthday parties are so much fun: the friends, the family, the games, the gifts, and, of course, the food! But what type of food do you serve at a birthday party when your family is from two different cultures? Young Mikey Yam is having a hard time choosing between the Italian food of his mother's side and the Chinese cuisine of his dad's. So, he turns to his grannies, Bahboo and Nonna, for advice.
"Ravioli or Dumplings? Linguine or Lo Mein? All of these options were hurting his brain."
Join Young Mikey as he decides which type of food to have for his birthday party, and the important life lesson he learns along the way.
COLD ENOUGH FOR SNOW
Written by Jessica Au
A mother and daughter travel from abroad to meet in Tokyo: they walk along the canals through the autumn evenings, escape the typhoon rains, share meals in small cafes and restaurants, and visit galleries to see some of the city’s most radical modern art. All the while, they talk: about the weather, horoscopes, clothes, and objects, about family, distance, and memory. But uncertainties abound. Who is really speaking here―is it only the daughter? And what is the real reason behind this elliptical, perhaps even spectral journey? At once a careful reckoning and an elegy, Cold Enough for Snow questions whether any of us speak a common language, which dimensions can contain love, and what claim we have to truly know another’s inner world.
ALWAYS ANJALI
Written by Sheetal Sheth and Illustrated by Jessica Blank
Meet Anjali! She's the spunky star of this picture book with a timeless message about appreciating what makes us special and honoring our different identities.
Anjali and her friends are excited to buy matching personalized license plates for their bikes--but Anjali can't find a plate with her name. She is often teased about her "different" name, and this is the last straw. Anjali is so upset that she demands her parents let her pick a new name! When they refuse, Anjali decides to take a closer look at who she is--beyond her name--and why being different means being marvelous.
Actress and activist Sheetal Sheth has penned a deeply personal picture book about the experience of feeling othered and the journey toward embracing yourself.
THE BEST WE COULD DO
Written by Thi Bui
In what Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen calls “a book to break your heart and heal it,” The Best We Could Do brings to life Thi Bui’s journey of understanding and provides inspiration to all of those who search for a better future while longing for a simpler past.
This beautifully illustrated and emotional story is an evocative memoir exploring the anguish of immigration and the lasting effects that displacement has on a child and her family. Bui documents the story of her family’s daring escape after the fall of South Vietnam in the 1970s, and the difficulties they faced building new lives for themselves.
At the heart of Bui’s story is a universal struggle: While adjusting to life as a first-time mother, she ultimately discovers what it means to be a parent—the sacrifices, the unnoticed gestures, and the depths of unspoken love. Despite how impossible it seems to take on the simultaneous roles of both parent and child, Bui pushes through. With haunting, poetic writing and breathtaking art, she examines the strength of family, the importance of identity, and the meaning of home.
SĀMOAN QUEER LIVES
Written by Dan Taulapapa McMullin & Yuki Kihara
Samoan Queer Lives delves into the unique lives of Samoan people who are ‘fa`afafine’ – broadly understood in the Western interpretation as persons who are of transgender, intersexed and third sex, or gay, lesbian and bisexual origin.
This book, the first of its kind, is edited and written by fa`afafine. Here fa`afafine share their stories in their own words.
MARKING INDIGENEITY: THE TONGAN ART OF SOCIOSPATIAL RELATIONS
Written by Tēvita O. Ka'ili
Tongans, the native people of the Kingdom of Tonga in the South Pacific, are a highly mobile indigenous group. Like their seafaring ancestors, they are constantly on the move across tā (time) and vā (space). Carrying their traditions with them, Tongans living in Maui, Hawai‘i, actively mediate those dimensions by extending the time-space structure of certain activities and places in order to practice tauhi vā—the marking of time to sustain harmonious relations and create beautiful sociospatial relations.
In Marking Indigeneity, Tēvita O. Ka‘ili examines the conflicts and reconciliation of indigenous time-space within the Tongan community in Maui, as well as within the time-space of capitalism. Using indigenous theory, he provides an ethnography of the social relations of the highly mobile Tongans.
EVERYTHING I LEARNED, I LEARNED IN A CHINESE RESTAURANT
Written by Curtis Chin
Nineteen eighties Detroit was a volatile place to live, but above the fray stood a safe haven: Chung’s Cantonese Cuisine, where anyone—from the city’s first Black mayor to the local drag queens, from a big-time Hollywood star to elderly Jewish couples—could sit down for a warm, home-cooked meal. Here was where, beneath a bright-red awning and surrounded by his multigenerational family, filmmaker and activist Curtis Chin came of age; where he learned to embrace his identity as a gay ABC, or American-born Chinese; where he navigated the divided city’s spiraling misfortunes; and where—between helpings of almond boneless chicken, sweet-and-sour pork, and some of his own, less-savory culinary concoctions—he realized just how much he had to offer to the world, to his beloved family, and to himself.
Served up by the cofounder of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and structured around the very menu that graced the tables of Chung’s, Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant is both a memoir and an invitation: to step inside one boy’s childhood oasis, scoot into a vinyl booth, and grow up with him—and perhaps even share something off the secret menu.
RICH AF: THE WINNING MONEY MINDSET THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE
Written by Vivian Tu
When Vivian Tu started working on Wall Street fresh from undergrad, all she knew was that she was making more money than she had ever seen in her life. But it wasn’t until she found a mentor of her own on the trading floor that she began to understand what wealthy people knew intuitively—the secrets to beating the proverbial financial game that has, for too long, been male, pale, and stale.
Building on the lessons she learned on Wall Street about money and the markets, Vivian now offers her best personal finance tips and tricks to readers of all ages and demographics, so that anyone can get rich, whether you grew up knowing the rules to the game or not. Vivian will be your mentor, dispensing fresh, no-BS advice on how to think like a rich person and create smart money habits.
Rich AF will equip readers with the tools and knowledge to not only understand the financial landscape, but to build a financial strategy of their own. And with Your Rich BFF at your side, you’ll be able to start your financial journey already in an affluent mindset, making the most of your money and growing your wealth for years to come.
SOMEWHERE IN THE MIDDLE
Written by Deborah Francisco Douglas
Half Filipino but raised in an American household, Deborah Francisco Douglas had always longed to know more about her Filipino heritage. So when a thick government-issued envelope arrived at her door announcing her assignment to the Philippines as a Peace Corps Volunteer, she snatched the opportunity and set out on a journey of self-discovery, travel, and adventure. Arriving in the mountain town of Baguio City, Philippines, she was introduced to a life of obnoxious roosters, bucket baths, and kids shouting her name every time she walked down the street. Despite her attempts to get involved in the community, her desire for belonging and identity did not materialize as quickly as planned. Realizing that “Filipino time” means nothing ever happens in a hurry, Deborah braces for the journey ahead, hoping to find answers, and above all, to find herself.
Filled with warmth and humor, Somewhere in the Middle captures the simple joy found in ordinary moments and in the people we share our lives with, shedding new light on what it truly means to find the place where you belong. Whether you’re hoping to unearth your own cultural roots, volunteer abroad, or find your next travel adventure, this memoir offers inspiration for all those yearning to discover who they are and where they belong in the world.
KNOW MY NAME: A MEMOIR
Written by Chanel Miller
She was known to the world as Emily Doe when she stunned millions with a letter. Brock Turner had been sentenced to just six months in county jail after he was found sexually assaulting her on Stanford's campus. Her victim impact statement was posted on BuzzFeed, where it instantly went viral--viewed by eleven million people within four days, it was translated globally and read on the floor of Congress; it inspired changes in California law and the recall of the judge in the case. Thousands wrote to say that she had given them the courage to share their own experiences of assault for the first time.
Now she reclaims her identity to tell her story of trauma, transcendence, and the power of words. It was the perfect case, in many ways--there were eyewitnesses, Turner ran away, physical evidence was immediately secured. But her struggles with isolation and shame during the aftermath and the trial reveal the oppression victims face in even the best-case scenarios. Her story illuminates a culture biased to protect perpetrators, indicts a criminal justice system designed to fail the most vulnerable, and, ultimately, shines with the courage required to move through suffering and live a full and beautiful life.
Know My Name will forever transform the way we think about sexual assault, challenging our beliefs about what is acceptable and speaking truth to the tumultuous reality of healing. It also introduces readers to an extraordinary writer, one whose words have already changed our world. Entwining pain, resilience, and humor, this memoir will stand as a modern classic.
THE MANICURIST’S DAUGHTER: A MEMOIR
Written by Susan Lieu
An emotionally raw memoir about the crumbling of the American Dream and a daughter of refugees who searches for answers after her mother dies during plastic surgery.
Susan Lieu has long been searching for answers. About her family’s past and about her own future. Refugees from the Vietnam War, Susan’s family escaped to California in the 1980s after five failed attempts. Upon arrival, Susan’s mother was their savvy, charismatic North Star, setting up two successful nail salons and orchestrating every success―until Susan was eleven. That year, her mother died from a botched tummy tuck. After the funeral, no one was ever allowed to talk about her or what had happened.
For the next twenty years, Susan navigated a series of cascading questions alone―why did the most perfect person in her life want to change her body? Why would no one tell her about her mother’s life in Vietnam? And how did this surgeon, who preyed on Vietnamese immigrants, go on operating after her mother’s death? Sifting through depositions, tracking down the surgeon’s family, and enlisting the help of spirit channelers, Susan uncovers the painful truth of her mother, herself, and the impossible ideal of beauty.
The Manicurist’s Daughter is much more than a memoir about grief, trauma, and body image. It is a story of fierce determination, strength in shared culture, and finding your place in the world.
ASIAN AMERICAN DREAMS
Written by Helen Zia
This groundbreaking book is about the transformation of Asian Americans from a few small, disconnected, and largely invisible ethnic groups into a self-identified racial group that is influencing every aspect of American society. It explores the junctures that shocked Asian Americans into motion and shaped a new consciousness, including the murder of Vincent Chin, a Chinese American, by two white autoworkers who believed he was Japanese; the apartheid-like working conditions of Filipinos in the Alaska canneries; the boycott of Korean American greengrocers in Brooklyn; the Los Angeles riots; and the casting of non-Asians in the Broadway musical Miss Saigon. The book also examines the rampant stereotypes of Asian Americans.
Helen Zia, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, was born in the 1950s when there were only 150,000 Chinese Americans in the entire country, and she writes as a personal witness to the dramatic changes involving Asian Americans.
Written for both Asian Americans―the fastest-growing population in the United States―and non-Asians, Asian American Dreams argues that America can no longer afford to ignore these emergent, vital, and singular American people.
SMITHSONIAN ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN HISTORY, ART, AND CULTURE IN 101 OBJECTS
Written by Theodore S. Gonzalves
A rich and compelling introduction to the history of Asian Pacific American communities as told through 101 objects, from a fortune cookie baking mold to the debut Ms. Marvel comic featuring Kamala Khan
Smithsonian Asian Pacific American History, Art, and Culture in 101 Objects invites readers to experience both well-known and untold stories through influential, controversial, and meaningful objects. Thematic chapters explore complex history and shared experiences: navigation, intersections, labor, innovation, belonging, tragedy, resistance and solidarity, community, service, memory, and joy.
The book features vibrant full-color illustrations of objects that embody and engage with Asian Pacific American issues, including the immigrant experience, the importance of media representation, what history gets officially documented vs. what does not, and so much more.