Songs My Mother Taught Me: Stories, Plays, and Memoir by Wakako Yamauchi [in What Do I Read Next? Multicultural Literature]
A rich collection of stories, plays, and memoir that span over 35 years by one of the pioneer voices of Asian America. Yamauchi is best known for her...
A deft coming-of-age first novel about young Lovey Nariyoshi of Hilo, Hawai'i, trying to forge her identity amidst the mish-mash of Japanese American roots, coveted Barbie dolls, and...
A collection of 15 short stories from Yamamoto’s almost half-century-long writing career. Although the stories cover diverse subject matter, some of Yamamoto’s recurring themes including multicultural and multiethnic interaction, multigenerational conflicts and difficulties that...
Kikue, a young Japanese woman, arrives in the U.S. believing she was to be a picture bride but instead is forced into prostitution. She devises an elaborate plan, not only...
The author returns to her ancestral homeland, guided by the stories her father – her "Baba" – has told her. There she begins a personal odyssey through northern China of the 1930s and ‘40s, following the...
A collection of interrelated short stories that begins in 1953 Macao, where a sickly Wei lives with his overprotective grandmother and ineffective father. Wei eventually emigrates to Honolulu, gets married, and has two children,...
Raymond Ding, a divorced Chinese American man in his 30s who prides himself on his strong ethnic identity and his politically correct views, is in love with Aurora Crane, a half-Japanese, half-Caucasian photojournalist in...
At 14, fourth-generation Chinese American Rainsford Chan is orphaned. Alone and searching, he recreates his family’s 125-year-long history in the U.S., wandering among his male ancestors, learning their stories and experiencing their lives. But even after...
A first collection of lyrical short stories, set in the Hawaiian Islands, about such diverse characters as a female Chinese Fred Astaire, a grandmother who makes quilts of stolen pieces...
A collection of stories, mostly set in Manila, inspired by real life stories and newspaper articles, focusing on the desperate citizens of a troubled country trying to survive poverty, government corruption, and loss of...
Mahi Wong grows up in post-World War II Hawai'i, surrounded by a large and complicated family of parents, siblings, and endless uncles and aunties. She is immersed in...
At age 6, Olivia meets for the first time, her adult half-sister Kwan, just arrived from China. Kwan shares with a disbelieving Olivia her stories of the Yin people – people not...
Helen and Winnie share a past that spans over 50 years and two continents, filled with hidden secrets. Now Helen thinks she’s dying, and feels she must tell all. Winnie realizes she...
Since 1949, four Chinese-born women, now living in San Francisco, gather regularly to play mah-jong and share their lives. Together they make up the Joy Luck Club. They share stories of the...
In a large San Francisco Victorian home live four Japanese American women, representing four generations: Reiko, the domineering matriarch, Rio, her desperate daughter, Tomoe, the dependable granddaughter-in-law, and Nomi, the rebellious great-granddaughter....
Arjie, a young boy growing up in an upper-middle-class family in Sri Lanka, is "funny" – he prefers to dress in saris and play with the girls. He comes of age amidst a time...
A novel written entirely in verse, about the machinations of love in the modern age. John’s lonely, so Jan secretly runs a personal ad on his behalf. John finds Liz. Recently divorced Phil ends...
Nine interrelated stories make up this debut collection, mostly about the San Francisco-based Terasaki family, living with the legacy of the Japanese American internment and the devastation of World War...
A collection of short stories, some interrelated, about the experiences of young Filipino American men living displaced lives, caught between their emotional ties to their families back in the Philippines, and their...
In 1929, Bhusan Singh, the aimless son of a wealthy raja, is on a train headed for his family home when he is arrested, falsely charged with treason, and imprisoned. Efforts to free him...