Asian Biography

Forced Out: A Nikkei Woman’s Search for a Home in America offers insight into “voluntary evacuation,” a little-known Japanese American experience during World War II, and the lasting effects of cultural trauma. Of the roughly 120,000 people forced from their homes by Executive Order 9066, around 5,000 were able to escape incarceration beforehand by fleeing inland.

This audiobook contains touching accounts of struggles and achievements of Korean Americans and serves an important primary source material for understanding the Korean teenage experience in the United States. This audiobook contains biographical accounts of a diverse group Korean Americans. Kenny Yoon, a junior at Horace Mann School in New York, is a part of the gifted music program at The Julliard School. Kenny describes how he came to play violin and how he hopes to bring joy to people through music.

A memoir of a South Vietnamese colonel's daughter, chronicling the tumultuous years growing up in the war-torn country of Vietnam and the abrupt and brutal regime change that forced her disruptive and disorienting coming of age between two vastly different cultures.

Nearly a decade after his triumphant Charlie Chan biography, Yunte Huang returns with this long-awaited portrait of Chang and Eng Bunker (1811-1874), twins conjoined at the sternum by a band of cartilage and a fused liver, who were "discovered" in Siam by a British merchant in 1824. Bringing an Asian American perspective to this almost implausible story, Huang depicts the twins, arriving in Boston in 1829, first as museum exhibits but later as financially savvy showmen who gained their freedom and traveled the backroads of rural America to bring "entertainment" to the Jacksonian mobs.

Author Lauren Hilgers captures the joys and indignities of building a life in a new country - and the stubborn allure of the American dream - in this deeply reported story of one indelible family transplanted from rural China to New York City.

A rich boy turned refugee tells the story of coming full circle to succeed in ways beyond his imagination. Born to a family that had recently fled British India during the partition of India and Pakistan, Ram's early life in Mombasa seemed charmed with wealth and success. However, losing all of this overnight through a second deportation, this time from Kenya to the UK, he saw the course of his life change beyond recognition.

If Crazy Rich Asians and a Greek tragedy had a literary offspring, it would be the spitting image of Why Should Guys Have All the Fun? The true story of resolute immigration lawyer and activist Loida Lewis, Why Should Guys Have All the Fun? begins with Loida's adventure-packed Philippine upbringing. A torrid love affair with brilliant, irascible financier Reginald Lewis follows, as does regal living in Manhattan and Paris, and gut-wrenching loss, all before Loida shockingly commandeers a multibillion-dollar, multinational conglomerate and leads it with aplomb.

>Blood, Steel & Canvas: The Asian Odyssey of a Fighter is a story about fighting on two levels: the American lawyer author’s improbable career as Asia’s oldest amateur boxer and his fight to overcome colon cancer and its consequences. Through his friendships with boxers in the Philippines and Thailand, his efforts (not always successful) to learn the languages and his delight in experiencing local cultures, he sets an example for other expatriates who have the great fortune to live and work overseas.

A journey back in time, The Golden Mountain is the gripping tale of four generations of Chinese women who live and die under the restrictions of their culture, except for one, the author. Her story tells of growing up in Hong Kong and of her transition to New York City where she struggled to meld the American dream with her ethnic background. Finally, at age 50, she dares to move into the present and understand the true nature of dreams and what it means to live.

Kimi’s Obaachan, her grandmother, had always been a silent presence throughout her youth. Sipping tea by the fire, preparing sushi for the family, or indulgently listening to Ojichan’s (grandfather’s) stories for the thousandth time, Obaachan was a missing link to Kimi’s Japanese heritage, something she had had a mixed relationship with all her life. Growing up in rural Pennsylvania, all Kimi ever wanted to do was fit in, spurning traditional Japanese cuisine and her grandfather’s attempts to teach her the language.

Yunte Huang ingeniously traces Charlie Chan from his real beginnings as a bullwhip-wielding detective in territorial Hawaii to his reinvention as a literary sleuth and Hollywood film icon. Huang finally resurrects the "honorable detective" from the graveyard of detested postmodern symbols and reclaims him as the embodiment of America’s rich cultural diversity. The result is one of the most critically acclaimed books of the year and a "deeply personal...voyage into racial stereotyping and the humanizing force of storytelling" (Donna Seaman, Los Angeles Times).

Sadia is a comedian who loves sex. She is also a hijab-wearing Muslim woman. The two are in a lifelong relationship, but it's complicated. Sadia Azmat has many different sides to her, she is the good Muslim sister and the loud and proud comedian, she is the quiet and loving friend and the horny and outspoken one. So why does everyone put her in a box and expect her to choose between one or the other?

A deeply personal and shocking look at how China is coming to terms with its conflicted past as it emerges into a modern, cutting-edge superpower.

When Simon Tam started an Asian American dance rock band called The Slants, he didn't realize that he was starting an entire movement around freedom of expression and discussions on identity. The band flipped stereotypes with their bombastic live shows and community activism. But when Simon applied to register a trademark on the band's name, the government dragged him all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States.

This book contains autobiographies by 12 individuals of Korean descent. However, their background experiences are vastly different. The editor of the book, Ariel Raimundo Choi, was born in Argentina and is still a citizen of Argentina; therefore, he considers himself a Hispanic-Korean-American. Ye One Chung grew up most of her life in Israel, so she considers Israel as her home. She writes a part of her autobiography in modern Hebrew, a language Ye One Chung is fluent at.

Modern Shanghai: a global city in the midst of a renaissance, where dreamers arrive each day to partake in a mad torrent of capital, ideas, and opportunity. Marketplace's Rob Schmitz is one of them. He immerses himself in his neighborhood, forging deep relationships with ordinary people who see in the city's sleek skyline a brighter future, and a chance to rewrite their destinies.

This audiobook features music and special effects. Listen along and enjoy the fun that is We Are Golden: 27 Groundbreakers Who Changed the World. Throughout history and to this day, people of Asian descent have been at the forefront of artistic brilliance, scientific advancement, and athletic...

This book of autobiographies by Korean middle-school students is something that is needed for Korean studies and Korean-American studies, in my opinion. Because this book contains our voices, this book is very powerful. In a sense, we are documenting our own history. Because our lives are like the lives of other middle-school students who are Koreans, I believe that this book contains an important history for everyone who listens to this book.

Europe's wealth essentially originates in Asia. And this is where Europe's wealth is now migrating back to. Understanding Asia's greatest entrepreneurs may allow you to join the party to come.

Fred Korematsu liked listening to music on the radio, playing tennis, and hanging around with his friends - just like lots of other Americans. But everything changed when the United States went to war with Japan in 1941 and the government forced all people of Japanese ancestry to leave their homes on the West Coast and move to distant prison camps. This included Fred, whose parents had immigrated to the United States from Japan many years before. But Fred refused to go.