Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption edited by Jane Jeong Trenka, Julia Chinyere Oparah and Sun Yung Shin [in Bloomsbury Review]
01 May, by in Adult Readers, Black/African American, Korean American, Latina/o/x, Nonfiction, Repost
“This book is a corrective action,” insist the three adoptee editors of this recent collection of essays and memoirs about growing up as a transracial adoptee. “Over the past fifty years, white adoptive parents, academics, psychiatrists,...
The long-awaited biography – even if it’s a tad bit on the academic side – on Hayakawa, a trailblazing Asian American film pioneer, who in his silent heyday was one of the most recognizable, lauded actors,...
This Chinese American installment of the Sex in the City-genre features three 20-something childhood best-friends, each pursuing her own brand of happiness in Manhattan. While it starts off with a rather cringe-inducing visit to a Chinatown...
Don’t start this at night because you won’t get any sleep until you’ve finished the final page. And still, the characters will linger on. Min’s aching debut novel tells the story of Isadora Myung Hee Sohn...
A young woman abandons her promising corporate job to seek out and photograph the scattered stories of women around the world. This slim, densely packed debut gives voice to eight questioning souls – some silenced by...
Marjane Satrapi on the "Axis of Evil," Cheese, and Exploring Family History
Marjane Satrapi changed my reading life. Before I picked up 
I have to admit that I had never heard of Indian graphic novels (just not on my radar, even though I have a heavy South Asian diasporic literary bent because...
Well, no wonder why I hadn't heard of Indian graphic novels until discovering Sarnath Banerjee! I wasn't alone as his debut title, Corridor, was widely marketed as Indian's first graphic novel! Although, that's apparently incorrect information...
Considered one of Korea’s best modernist poets, Kim produced just one collection during his brief life – he died tragically (perhaps deliberately) of an opium overdose at just 32 years. That single collection, Azaleas, is available...
Gene Luen Yang, National Book Award Nominee, Makes Publishing History ...
Far atop the High Altai Mountains in western Mongolia is an unpredictable climate of extremes – breathtaking in its warmer beauty, yet unforgiving in the harshness of its frigid months. Unknown to most Westerners, the Republic...
Imagine a childhood marked by separation, isolation, abuse, sexual assault, disease and starvation. And imagine feeling lucky – because you survived such atrocities.
The most tragic irony of all is that Emily Wu is indeed lucky, even...
Putting Ruth Ozeki's name on a book's cover is an unconditional guarantee that I will buy that book. And I'm not alone: Ozeki's novels My Year of Meats and All Over Creation have been international successes.
The...
Makibaka means 'struggle' – the struggle of Filipino Americans who survived great hardships to become Americans. Young Lakas inspires the inhabitants of the Makibaka Hotel to fight the building owner's attempts to force the tenants from...
A Bangladeshi immigrant family heads to Canada in search of asylum. When the father is inexplicably arrested at the border, the two daughters return alone to New York, where friends and family are disappearing without explanation....
"hapa (hä'pä) adj. 1. Slang. of mixed racial heritage with partial roots in Asian and/or Pacific Islander ancestry. n. 2. Slang. a person of such ancestry. [der./Hawaiian: Hapa Haole (half white)]" Thus opens Fulbeck's fabulous compilation...
This one will break your heart in the most haunting way. The follow-up to An Na’s Michael L. Printz Award-winning 
The Los Angeles riots that broke out on April 29, 1992, was a turning point for the Korean American community. But the events affected not only Korean Americans, but reverberated through U.S. society at large. Using...
An unput-down-able romp of a fun novel (with a few very serious moments) starring hapa (half-Asian, half-not) Patty Ho who goes from awkward Seattle suburb freshman to adventurous, independent Stanford summer math camper.
Reviews: "In Celebration of...