American Refugee

By the end of the Civil War, nearly half a million slaves had taken refuge behind Union lines in what became known as "contraband camps". These were crowded, dangerous places, yet some 12 to 15 percent of the Confederacy's slave population took almost unimaginable risks to reach them, and they became the first places Northerners came to know former slaves en masse.

In 1975, 13-year-old Lan Cao boarded an airplane in Saigon and got off in a world where she faced hosts she had not met before, a language she didn't speak, and food she didn't recognize, with the faint hope that she would be able to go home soon. Lan fought her way through confusion, and racism, to become a successful lawyer and novelist. Four decades later, she faced the biggest challenge in her life: raising her daughter, Harlan - half Vietnamese by birth and 100 percent American teenager by inclination.

A moving chronicle of who belongs in America. Like so many American factory towns, Lewiston, Maine, thrived until its mill jobs disappeared and the young began leaving. But then the story unexpectedly veered: over the course of fifteen years, the city became home to thousands of African...

Set against the backdrop of an American town that without its consent had become a vast social experiment, Outcasts United follows a pivotal season in the life of the Fugees and their charismatic coach. Warren St. John documents the lives of a diverse group of young people as they miraculously coalesce into a band of brothers, while also drawing a fascinating portrait of a fading American town struggling to accommodate its new arrivals.

Long before their country officially joined the war, American aid workers were active in rescue efforts across Europe. Two such Americans were Martha and Waitstill Sharp, who were originally sent to Prague as part of a relief effort but turned immediately to helping Jews and dissidents after the 1939 invasion by Germany. They were not the only ones. Renowned historian Debórah Dwork follows the story of rescue workers in five major cities as the refugee crisis expanded to Vilna, Shanghai, Marseille, and Lisbon. Followed by Nazi agents, spiriting people across borders, they learned secrecy.

Critically acclaimed, for readers of Paul Beatty's The Sellout and Jennifer Egan's The Candy House, a moving and darkly funny novel about an attempt to found an underground Utopia. An abandoned restaurant on a hill off the highway in Western Massachusetts doesn't look like much. But to Rio, a...

As a young boy, Aurelio F. Barreto III fled communist Cuba with his family to search for the American Dream. But making his first million in his twenties only led the young inventor to realize he could not buy the kind of life he was searching for. Read what finally got Aurelio's attention, and how God used his lifes' failures and challenges in an unexpected new way.

Clarkston, Georgia, was a typical Southern town until it was designated a refugee settlement center in the 1990s, becoming the first American home for scores of families in flight from the world's war zones; from Liberia and Sudan to Iraq and Afghanistan. Suddenly Clarkston's streets were filled with women wearing the hijab, the smells of cumin and curry, and kids of all colors playing soccer in any open space they could find.

Beautiful, sweet Shay and dark, dangerous Tanner don′t have a lot in common. He′s a suspicious big city cop come home to his family′s ranch and she′s a bleeding heart who works for a group that seeks out ranches to conserve after the owners have passed away. But the suspicious death of...

With deep empathy, rigorous reporting, and the irresistible perspective of a true romantic, journalist Anna Lekas Miller spotlights couples around the world who confront frustrating immigration systems to be together—as she did to be with her husband. ​ We are told that love conquers all...

For this striking, stripped-down account of youth immigration, Villalobos interviewed teens at various stages of the immigration process to illustrate their stories - the physical and emotional difficulties of their travels. He then changed certain elements of these stories in order to protect the children's identities. Each chapter brings forth the voice of one young immigrant's experience, from crossing the Mexican desert to gang violence to the freezers at ICE detention centers.

American War meets Into the Wild in Brian Hart’s epic saga of one man’s struggle to survive a hostile world—tracing his path from a self-destructive, skateboarding youth in the 90s to the near future as he journeys across a desolate, militia-controlled American West to find his...

Abdi Nor Iftin first fell in love with America from afar. As a child, he learned English by listening to American pop and watching action films starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. When US marines landed in Mogadishu to take on the warlords, Abdi cheered the arrival of these Americans, who seemed as heroic as those of the movies. Sporting American clothes and dance moves, he became known around Mogadishu as Abdi American, but when the radical Islamist group al-Shabaab rose to power in 2006, it became dangerous to celebrate Western culture.

Co-written by a New York Times best-selling author, this moving story of a Muslim boy’s exile from war-torn Bosnia to the United States offers a riveting refugee saga.​ Kenan loves drawing and playing soccer with his friends. He wants to be a famous athlete, hates it when his classmates...

From the ruins of refugee camps to a makeshift attic turned home, life hasn't always been crystal clear for one of the nation's capital's hottest radio personalities and influencers, Sunni and the City.... In her topsy-turvy journey, Sunni walks us through the raw challenges of her life as an immigrant, chasing the American dream, being haunted by the past, finding a new identity, and building a future.

In this compelling book, Ther examines the major causes of mass flight, from religious intolerance and ethnic cleansing to political persecution and war. He describes the perils and traumas of flight and explains why refugees and asylum seekers have been welcomed in some periods - such as during the Cold War - and why they are rejected in times such as our own. He also examines the afterlives of the refugees in the receiving countries, which almost always benefited from admitting them. He reconceptualizes Europe as a unit of geography and historiography.

It all started with a curse. When Woong's hunger drives him to steal the fancy meal set out by his superstitious mother, he invokes a shaman's wrath. Soon afterwards, a flood ravages his home, ripping him from his parents and hurtling him into street life during the catastrophic North Korean famine of the 1990s. Traveling from place to place in order to survive, Woong meets a grandmother whose faith in the Dear Leader enables her to wait patiently for the arrival of food aid, an uncle whose plot to take over a grain silo could land the whole family in prison camp, and a mysterious character who may or may not have an angelic blessing.

For the first time, music legend Rudy Pérez shares his remarkable journey from a poor refugee kid in Miami to composing the greatest hit songs on the world stage. Named the most successful Latin songwriter in history, Rudy Pérez is the creator behind some of the best-selling records of Beyoncé, Julio Iglesias, Christina Aguilera, and IL Divo.

In Wade in the Water, Tracy K. Smith boldly ties America's contemporary moment both to our nation's fraught founding history and to a sense of the spirit, the everlasting. These are poems of sliding scale: some capture a flicker of song or memory; some collage an array of documents and voices; and some push past the known world into the haunted, the holy. Smith's signature voice - inquisitive, lyrical, and wry - turns over what it means to be a citizen, a mother, and an artist in a culture arbitrated by wealth, men, and violence.

It's 30,000 BC. Hiding in a giant mimosa tree, Maru watches her father meet with the leader of a treacherous Andean tribe. Her father, furious that she's followed him, tells her that if he is killed - something he fully expects - she must warn their people to flee. The people are prepared, but Maru, at age seven, is not. Her father places heavy responsibility on her because she followed him.