Memoirs for Asian Pacific American Heritage MonthLike this list

25 items

• No Country for Eight-spot Butterflies

  a Lyric Essay

  Aguon, Julian

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  An attorney and environmental activist from Guam turns a searching eye on the fate of his homeland in a time of undeniable climate change. (Kirkus)

• Uncle Rico's Encore

  Mostly True Stories of Filipino Seattle

  Bacho, Peter

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  Autobiographical essays explore the experiences of Filipino Americans in Seattle from the 1950s-1970s, from everyday moments and celebrations to coordinated acts of defiance and activism. (staff annotation)

• Fatty Fatty Boom Boom

  a Memoir of Food, Fat, and Family

  Chaudry, Rabia

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  A memoir about food, body image, and growing up in a loving but sometimes oppressively concerned Pakistani immigrant family. (Publisher description)

• Mott Street

  a Chinese American Family's Story of Exclusion and Homecoming

  Chin, Ava

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  A Chinese American writer searches for roots not easily uncovered. A lively memoir that limns a long family history and helps us understand the troubled history of our nation. (Kirkus)

• Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant

  a Memoir

  Chin, Curtis

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  Chin, a cofounder of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, debuts with a captivating account of growing up gay and Chinese in 1980s Detroit. (Publishers Weekly)

• Uncommon Measure

  a Journey Through Music, Performance, and the Science of Time

  Hodges, Natalie

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  Korean American violinist Hodges debuts with a literary mosaic of invention, inquiry, and wonder that interrogates classical music, quantum entanglement, the Tiger Mother stereotype, and the fluidity of time. This impresses at every turn.…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Feeding Ghosts

  a Graphic Memoir

  Hulls, Tessa, 1984-

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  Hulls’s epic, elegantly etched graphic memoir debut tangles with trauma’s long tentacles as she follows three generations of her family from Mao’s China to Hong Kong in the 1960s and eventually to contemporary Northern California. The…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Stay True

  a Memoir

  Hsu, Hua, 1977-

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  A Taiwanese American writer remembers an intimate but unexpected college friendship cut short by tragedy. A stunning, intricate memoir about friendship, grief, and memory. (Kirkus)

• Starry Field

  a Memoir of Lost History

  Lee, Margaret Juhae

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  Lee ... was born in the U.S. to Korean parents, and for years, she felt a deep sense of cultural dislocation. In an attempt to bring solidity to her unsettled life, she started to investigate the story of her grandfather, a shadowy figure…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Manicurist's Daughter

  a Memoir

  Lieu, Susan

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  A Chinese Vietnamese woman uses performance art to grieve her mother’s death. An intimate Asian American memoir about family, memory, and grief. (Kirkus)

• Local

  a Memoir

  Machado, Jessica

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  Born and raised in Hawai'i by a father whose ancestors are indigenous to the land and a mother from the American South, Jessica Machado wrestles with what it means to be "local." Interwoven with a rich and nuanced exploration of Hawaiian…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Secret Harvests

  a Hidden Story of Separation and the Resilience of a Family Farm

  Masumoto, David Mas

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  The noted writer and organic farmer looks deep inside his family history to give voice to the unspoken. The author looks forward to a country where his fourth-generation Japanese American children, the yonsei, are incontestably American,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Cat and Bird

  a Memoir

  Mori, Kyoko

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  A writer’s lessons and insights gleaned from a life spent with cats. (Kirkus)

• Bite by Bite

  Nourishments & Jamborees

  Nezhukumatathil, Aimee

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  Poet and essayist Nezhukumatathil ... creates a graceful memoir centered on 40 different kinds of food, some exotic, some familiar, all evoking recollections of childhood, family, travels, friendships, and much more. (Kirkus)

• Owner of a Lonely Heart

  a Memoir

  Nguyen, Beth

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  American Book Award winner Nguyen ... returns with a memoir focused on settling in Michigan after her family fled Vietnam during the war, when Nguyen was an infant. Nguyen's honesty and vulnerability will captivate readers instantly.…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• A Man of Two Faces

  a Memoir, a History, a Memorial

  Nguyen, Viet Thanh, 1971-

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  This bold and ambitious memoir from novelist Nguyen employs a dazzling hybrid of prose and poetry to explore the author’s life in America as a Vietnamese refugee. It’s a savvy and complex account of coming-of-age in a foreign land.…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Translator's Daughter

  a Memoir

  Prasad, Grace Loh, 1969-

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  When Prasad was two years old, her family moved from Taiwan to the United States due to their fear of political repression by Chiang Kai-shek's government. But when Prasad was a college student, her parents returned to Taiwan, leaving her…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Ma and Me

  a Memoir

  Reang, Putsata, 1974-

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  Piercing memoir of a mother-daughter relationship and their experiences coming to America as refugees from the Cambodian civil war in the 1970s. Well-wrought vignettes of a complicated mother-daughter bond. (Kirkus)

• Horse Barbie

  a Memoir

  Rocero, Geena, 1983-

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  A model and trans advocate recounts the story of her life, from her childhood in the Philippines to a series of careers in the U.S. A jaunty and inspiring memoir of an eventful life with many acts left to unfold. (Kirkus)

• The Way You Make Me Feel

  Love in Black and Brown

  Sharma, Nina (Writer)

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  This sinuous debut memoir-in-essays from Sharma, who is of Indian descent, utilizes her romance with Quincy Scott Jones, a Black poet, as a jumping-off point for wide-ranging meditations on American and Indian culture, racism in the U.S.,…Read moreRead more of this annotation