Immigrant Memoirs

This "moving, deeply human" memoir tells the inspiring story of the first openly transgender woman to win a NCAA title, following the obstacles she overcame to achieve her Olympic dreams (The Cut). CeCé Telfer is a warrior. She has contended with transphobia on and off the track since childhood...

Born with a physical handicap, illegal, and undocumented for 21 years, he was determined to enter mainstream American society and corporate America and overcame insurmountable odds to achieve unimaginable heights. His journey had a spiritual awakening that changed his life. After assimilating into corporate America, he set sales records and felt a calling to reach others in his race who were shut out and who also aspired to become productive citizens in the United States of America.

This important book focuses on how women of color, children of immigrants, and other minoritized groups are predisposed to workplace imposter syndrome—and charts a path forward for self-advocacy and advancement.​ For women of color and children of immigrants, who are the “the other” at...

Carlos Bulosan’s idealism and ambition would seem to position him for certain success in America, even given how young he is when he first makes the journey from the Philippines. However, after arriving in Seattle, employers are far more concerned with his Filipino background than they are with his character. Low-paying jobs - and an uncertain future - remain his daily reality.

After losing 25 members of their family in the Holocaust, the author and his parents escape a brutal Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, transforming themselves in a single day from one of their native country’s wealthiest families to stateless refugees with all their assets contained in three suitcases. Young Charlie’s father orders him to speak English without an accent and to become a “100% American.”

In this book, the author shares personal stories, captivating the listener with descriptions of her experiences and challenges as an African immigrant, an international student, and later, as a mother of three children. The quotes she chooses to use as openers for each letter reflect her background as an African anthropologist and spiritual leader. She sums up each missive with lessons she has learned during her decades of living in the United States. This book offers insight into the life a minoritized American immigrant from an internal perspective.

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...

Award-winning author Reyna Grande shares her personal experience of crossing borders and cultures in this middle grade adaptation of her memoir, The Distance Between Us—“an important account of the many ways immigration impacts children” (Booklist, starred review). When her parents make...

This memoir from the first Black Republican congresswoman in America shows readers how to own their stories, find their voices, and lead with character as they empower others to do the same. For so long, women—and Black women in particular—have been taught that they must have a stellar...

A powerful meditation on identity and belonging, Sejal Shah explores the tension of being both invisible and hyper-visible in a country that struggles with race. The daughter of immigrants from India and Kenya, Shah wrestles with her experiences growing up in—and returning to—western New York, an area of stark racial and socioeconomic segregation. Her work illuminates how we are all marked by family and place; by the limits of our bodies; by our losses and regrets; by who and what we love; by our ambivalences and our silences.

From finding common ground with warlords, introducing the Taliban to change, and working with NFL greats such as Marshawn Lynch, this uplifting memoir and “study of resilience” (General Paul Selva, United States Air Force) from coach and personal development expert, Tareq Azim, will help you...

As a child in a small barrio in the Philippines, Deja Vu Prem faced neglect and physical abuse. At age seventeen, desperate to escape her situation and claim a better life for herself beyond the mountains of her town, she became a mail-order bride and moved to San Francisco. But the challenges of her childhood didn't go away—they merely evolved into the form of her emotionally abusive husband.

Few people watch sport for its politics. Yet what happens on the field of play often reflects the problems in our society. Such was the case in the '80s, when black footballers emerged from the dressing room to find bananas being hurled from the stands, and racially motivated attacks and police harassment were the norm. Today, things have improved. Crowds are less hostile and stars like Anthony Joshua and Sir Mohamed Farah are among our most revered sporting heroes. But for athletes of colour, success on the field seldom converts to power away from it.

Acclaimed biographer John Loughery tells the story of John Hughes, son of Ireland, friend of William Seward and James Buchanan, founder of St. John's College (now Fordham University), builder of Saint Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, pioneer of parochial school education, and American diplomat. As archbishop of the Archdiocese of New York in the 1840 and 1850s and the most famous Roman Catholic in America, Hughes defended Catholic institutions in a time of nativist bigotry and church burnings and worked tirelessly to help Irish Catholic immigrants find acceptance.

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. Through the stories of three generations of women in her family, Karoline Kan, a former New York Times reporter based in Beijing, reveals how they...

Sweet and Low is the amazing, bittersweet, hilarious story of an American family and its patriarch, a short-order cook named Ben Eisenstadt who, in the years after World War II, invented the sugar packet and Sweet'N Low, converting his Brooklyn cafeteria into a factory and amassing the great...

From Ty McCormick, winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, an epic and timeless story of a family in search of safety, security, and a place to call home. When Asad Hussein was growing up in the world’s largest refugee camp, nearly every aspect of life revolved around getting to...

The acclaimed actress and author of Jesse: A Mother’s Story tells the "entertaining and moving" story of her outspoken, frequently outrageous Italian immigrant mother (Tom Perrotta) Marianne Leone’s Ma is in many senses a larger-than-life character, one who might be capable, even from the...

Intimate and honest essays on motherhood, marriage, love, and acceptance. Brown White Black is a portrait of Nishta J. Mehra's family: her wife, who is white; her adopted child, Shiv, who is black; and their experiences dealing with America's rigid ideas of race, gender, and sexuality. Her...

This anthology of popular American history presents the stories of nine incredible Irish immigrants as written by nine contemporary Irish-Americans. More than one in 10 Americans claims Irish ancestry and, with its celebrity contributors, Nine Irish Lives will have strong appeal for those listeners. It is also, though, a timely portrait of shared humanity. These are stories about immigrants - and in the tales of revolutionaries and visionaries, caretakers and unsung heroes, Nine Irish Lives reminds us of the values and the people that have shaped America.