Journey to America


Book Description

Journey to America is a beautiful collection of biographies celebrating 20 of America’s most inspiring first- and second-generation immigrants.




Origins


Book Description




Angel Island


Book Description

From 1910 to 1940, over half a million people sailed through the Golden Gate, hoping to start a new life in America. But they did not all disembark in San Francisco; instead, most were ferried across the bay to the Angel Island Immigration Station. For many, this was the real gateway to the United States. For others, it was a prison and their final destination, before being sent home. In this landmark book, historians Erika Lee and Judy Yung (both descendants of immigrants detained on the island) provide the first comprehensive history of the Angel Island Immigration Station. Drawing on extensive new research, including immigration records, oral histories, and inscriptions on the barrack walls, the authors produce a sweeping yet intensely personal history of Chinese "paper sons," Japanese picture brides, Korean students, South Asian political activists, Russian and Jewish refugees, Mexican families, Filipino repatriates, and many others from around the world. Their experiences on Angel Island reveal how America's discriminatory immigration policies changed the lives of immigrants and transformed the nation. A place of heartrending history and breathtaking beauty, the Angel Island Immigration Station is a National Historic Landmark, and like Ellis Island, it is recognized as one of the most important sites where America's immigration history was made. This fascinating history is ultimately about America itself and its complicated relationship to immigration, a story that continues today.




Journey of Hope


Book Description

A three-dimensional book featuring images and documents of Irish immigrants.




How May I Help You?


Book Description

In a work that is both moving and insightful, Deepak Singh chronicles his downward mobility as an immigrant to a small town in Virginia. Armed with an MBA from India, Singh could only get a minimum wage job in an electronics store in a strip mall. Every day at work he confronted unfamiliar American mores—from strange idioms to deeply entrenched racism to open expressions of sexuality. Story-by-story, Singh offers a portrait of America by an educated, if initially credulous, outsider. Through his unique lens, he learns about his colleagues and their struggles—Ron, a middle-aged African American man, simply trying to keep his job, house, and marriage intact despite health concerns; Jackie, a young African American woman trying to go to school after work; and Cindy, Deepak’s boss, whose matter-of-fact way of dealing with her employees helps Deepak to adapt to both his job and life in the U.S. Candid and evocative, How May I Help You? is a powerful reminder that service and other low-wage workers are complex and inspiring in their dogged efforts to remain afloat. Their rich stories serve as a chance to humanize debates about work, race, and immigration. How May I Help You? is an incisive take on the United States, familiar and strange, from the perspective of someone “fresh off the plane.”




How to American


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Standup comic, actor and fan favorite from HBO's Silicon Valley and the film Crazy Rich Asians shares his memoir of growing up as a Chinese immigrant in California and making it in Hollywood. "I turned down a job in finance to pursue a career in stand-up comedy. My dad thought I was crazy. But I figured it was better to disappoint my parents for a few years than to disappoint myself for the rest of my life. I had to disappoint them in order to pursue what I loved. That was the only way to have my Chinese turnip cake and eat an American apple pie too." Jimmy O. Yang is a standup comedian, film and TV actor and fan favorite as the character Jian Yang from the popular HBO series Silicon Valley. In How to American, he shares his story of growing up as a Chinese immigrant who pursued a Hollywood career against the wishes of his parents: Yang arrived in Los Angeles from Hong Kong at age 13, learned English by watching BET RapCity for three hours a day, and worked as a strip club DJ while pursuing his comedy career. He chronicles a near deportation episode during a college trip Tijuana to finally becoming a proud US citizen ten years later. Featuring those and many other hilarious stories, while sharing some hard-earned lessons, How to American mocks stereotypes while offering tongue in cheek advice on pursuing the American dreams of fame, fortune, and strippers.




Tell Me How It Ends


Book Description

"Part treatise, part memoir, part call to action, Tell Me How It Ends inspires not through a stiff stance of authority, but with the curiosity and humility Luiselli has long since established." —Annalia Luna, Brazos Bookstore "Valeria Luiselli's extended essay on her volunteer work translating for child immigrants confronts with compassion and honesty the problem of the North American refugee crisis. It's a rare thing: a book everyone should read." —Stephen Sparks, Point Reyes Books "Tell Me How It Ends evokes empathy as it educates. It is a vital contribution to the body of post-Trump work being published in early 2017." —Katharine Solheim, Unabridged Books "While this essay is brilliant for exactly what it depicts, it helps open larger questions, which we're ever more on the precipice of now, of where all of this will go, how all of this might end. Is this a story, or is this beyond a story? Valeria Luiselli is one of those brave and eloquent enough to help us see." —Rick Simonson, Elliott Bay Book Company "Appealing to the language of the United States' fraught immigration policy, Luiselli exposes the cracks in this foundation. Herself an immigrant, she highlights the human cost of its brokenness, as well as the hope that it (rather than walls) might be rebuilt." —Brad Johnson, Diesel Bookstore "The bureaucratic labyrinth of immigration, the dangers of searching for a better life, all of this and more is contained in this brief and profound work. Tell Me How It Ends is not just relevant, it's essential." —Mark Haber, Brazos Bookstore "Humane yet often horrifying, Tell Me How It Ends offers a compelling, intimate look at a continuing crisis—and its ongoing cost in an age of increasing urgency." —Jeremy Garber, Powell's Books




Working Toward Whiteness


Book Description

How did immigrants to the United States come to see themselves as white? David R. Roediger has been in the vanguard of the study of race and labor in American history for decades. He first came to prominence as the author of The Wages of Whiteness, a classic study of racism in the development of a white working class in nineteenth-century America. In Working Toward Whiteness, Roediger continues that history into the twentieth century. He recounts how ethnic groups considered white today-including Jewish-, Italian-, and Polish-Americans-were once viewed as undesirables by the WASP establishment in the United States. They eventually became part of white America, through the nascent labor movement, New Deal reforms, and a rise in home-buying. Once assimilated as fully white, many of them adopted the racism of those whites who formerly looked down on them as inferior. From ethnic slurs to racially restrictive covenants-the real estate agreements that ensured all-white neighborhoods-Roediger explores the mechanisms by which immigrants came to enjoy the privileges of being white in America. A disturbing, necessary, masterful history, Working Toward Whiteness uses the past to illuminate the present. In an Introduction to the 2018 edition, Roediger considers the resonance of the book in the age of Trump, showing how Working Toward Whiteness remains as relevant as ever even though most migrants today are not from Europe.




Rise


Book Description

' Women and girls around the world will find inspiration and strength in the pages of this beautiful book.' Malala Yousafzai Rise celebrates the inspirational stories of 100 remarkable women of colour. From the entrepreneur with a homemade marmalade business who went on to found Women's World Banking, to the educator who built the first university in the world; and from the athlete who fled civil war on a sinking boat and then swam in the Olympics, to the first Black female astronaut, these trailblazers have risen above challenges to reach dizzying heights. . These scientists, entertainers, sportswomen, artists and activists hail from more than forty countries. Past and present, famous and forgotten, they have worked both behind the scenes and under public scrutiny to make our world a better place. . Featuring stunning portrait illustrations by noted artist Maliha Abidi, Rise reveals the creativity and courage of these pioneers, and is essential for all.




American Muslim


Book Description

Saima A Sitwat emigrated to the United States of America from Pakistan, in 2003. Her immigrant experience was defined, not only by learning the nuances of the American language and culture but also that of the American Muslims. A Muslim by birth, Saima would struggle to find her place within the American as well as the American Muslim community. Along the way, she would become a mother and a community leader. American Muslim: An Immigrant's Journey, is one woman's story of exploring new vistas, stretching her boundaries and reconciling with the evolving notions of home. But more poignantly, Saima's journey leads us to explore some fundamental questions of our present-day world: What does it mean to be a minority, Muslim immigrant woman in America?