Immigrant Memoirs

Return to India is a powerful memoir about what it means to be an immigrant in a foreign country and what propels immigrants to return to their homeland. Following in the tradition of her first book, Monsoon Diary: a memoir with recipes, award-winning author, Shoba Narayan explores themes of family, culture and identity. In vivid and heartfelt prose, Shoba Narayan describes the trajectory of her immigrant life from the salty plains of South India to the high rises of New York and Boston. From the exhilarating thrill of being a new immigrant to becoming an angst-ridden mother grappling with ...

Confessions of An Indian Immigrant: Dawn of IT Opportunities in the Land of Promise by Aithal is a compelling personal memoir that chronicles the journey of an ambitious young professional who leaves behind the bustling streets of Mumbai to pursue the American Dream. Set during a pivotal time in global history—before smartphones, social media, and the digitization of everyday life—the book offers a vivid recollection of life as an Indian immigrant during the early days of the information technology revolution. The narrative begins with Aithal’s decision to move to New York, a ...

It’s easy to talk about freedom. But unless someone has lived in a world that suffocates freedom, it’s difficult to appreciate the liberty found in America. This is the true story of a Pakistani Muslim who immigrates to the United States for college and discovers five transformational freedoms along the way: the freedom to fail and start over, to love, to choose one’s faith, to be an entrepreneur, and to self-govern.

AN NAACP IMAGE AWARD NOMINEE America’s most popular sports media figure tells it like it is in this “raw, deeply authentic, and immensely entertaining” (Bob Iger, #1 New York Times bestselling author and CEO of The Walt Disney Company) book, not only dishing out his signature, uninhibited...

How do you rebuild hope while chasing the American Dream? At nine years old, Aldi is thrust into chaos by the Bosnian War, witnessing loss and fear as her family flees genocide. Arriving in America, the promise of safety brings new challenges: cultural isolation, fractured identity, and the ongoing struggle with mental health. Aldi’s journey explores the real cost—and potential—of the immigrant experience in pursuit of a better life. Jealous of the Dead: Secrets of an Immigrant Survivor offers a raw, honest account of surviving twice—first in a war zone, then as a refugee in a ...

From standup comedian Youngmi Mayer, an unforgettable memoir written with “raw, enviable freedom that simply floors you,” interrogating whiteness, gender, and sexuality in America, navigating a tumultuous childhood in Korea and Saipan, and coming to terms with her parents’ shortcomings...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER The courageous memoir of one woman’s globe-spanning journey of unraveling and awakening—breaking free of the narratives that once defined her and confronting the long-buried truths of a traumatic past—by the former CEO and co-founder of Embrace. “A brilliant and...

Witty, sharp, and unflinching, I Named My Dog Pushkin will have fans of Samantha Irby and Jenny Lawson howling with laughter at Margarita’s catastrophes, her victories, and her near misses as she learns to grow as both a woman and an immigrant in a world that often doesn’t appreciate either.

Baby-faced teen Giovanni Macedo is desperate to find belonging in one of LA's most predatory gangs, the Columbia Lil Cycos—so desperate that he agrees to kill an undocumented Mexican street vendor. The vendor, Francisco Clemente, had been refusing to give in to the gang's shakedown demands. But Giovanni botches the hit, accidentally killing a newborn instead. The overlords who rule the Lil Cycos from a Supermax prison 1,000 miles away must be placated and Giovanni is lured across the border where, in turn, the gang botches his killing.

Read by the author. A love letter to America from the pen of actor, producer, immigrant, and activist Wilmer Valderrama. In this timely memoir, Valderrama looks back on his journey from a tiny pueblo in Venezuela to the big city of Los Angeles—how he discovered his calling as an actor and...

MacArthur “Genius” Cristina Jiménez writes and narrates her inspiring story from undocumented newcomer to leader in a powerful immigrant youth movement. Dreaming of Home is a coming-of-age story for both a young woman finding her true self and a social movement of immigrant youth...

This program is read by the author. “My Side of the River is both fierce and poetic. It brilliantly reframes border writing while embracing nature and familial history. There are moments one sees greatness appear. This is one of those moments.” —Luis Alberto Urrea, New York Times...

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.

From the bestselling author of Submerged: Life on a Fast Attack Submarine in the Last Days of the Cold War How to Hotwire an Airplane is ultimately a humane, provocative novel one that refuses easy answers and asks readers to sit with uncomfortable questions about law, mercy, and what it takes to heal. Its combination of intimate character work and high-stakes sociopolitical conflict makes it both a page-turner and a conversation starter. In the spring of 2001, Hiram Bleeker, a lonely, guilt-wracked Vietnam veteran with severe PTSD, is holding a gun to his mouth. As he is about to pull the ...

In this deeply personal book, the celebrated Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat reflects on art and exile. Inspired by Albert Camus and adapted from her own lectures for Princeton University’s Toni Morrison Lecture Series, here Danticat tells stories of artists who create despite (or because of) the horrors that drove them from their homelands. Combining memoir and essay, these moving and eloquent pieces examine what it means to be an artist from a country in crisis.

Jenn Budd, the only former US Border Patrol agent to continually blow the whistle on this federal agency's rampant corruption, challenges us—as individuals and as a nation—to face the consequences of our actions. Her journey offers a vital perspective on the unfolding moral crisis of our time. She also gives harrowing testimony about rape culture, white privilege, women in law enforcement, LGBTQ issues, mental illness, survival, and forgiveness.

An inspiring survivor of Mao’s Cultural Revolution in China makes a passionate case that history is eerily repeating itself as the Woke Revolution spreads across America. Xi Van Fleet lived through the horrors of the Chinese Cultural Revolution as a schoolgirl. Forced to the countryside...

Out of the stories heard in her childhood in Los Angeles's Chinatown and years of research, See has constructed this sweeping chronicle of her Chinese-American family, a work that takes in stories of racism and romance, entrepreneurial genius and domestic heartache, secret marriages and sibling rivalries, in a powerful history of two cultures meeting in a new world.

Bestselling writer and psychotherapist Irvin D. Yalom puts himself on the couch in a lapidary memoir Irvin D. Yalom has made a career of investigating the lives of others. In this profound memoir, he turns his writing and his therapeutic eye on himself. He opens his story with a nightmare: He is...

"Narrator Edoardo Ballerini captures the listener's heart with this new audiobook memoir following a family that was forced to move to Rome after being expelled from their home in Egypt during political unrest."—AudioFile André Aciman, the author of Call Me by Your Name returns with a deeply...