Memoirs for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month
May is Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month. Celebrate with these memoirs highlighting lived experiences by Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander authors. List created by a librarian at The Seattle Public Library, annotations as noted. (April 2024)
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Local
Born and raised in Hawai'i by a father whose ancestors are indigenous to the land and a mother from the American South, Jessica Machado wrestles with what it means to be "local." Interwoven with a rich and nuanced exploration of Hawaiian history and traditions, Local is a personal and moving narrative about family, grief, and reconnecting to the land she tried to leave behind. (Publisher description)
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Secret Harvests
The noted writer and organic farmer looks deep inside his family history to give voice to the unspoken. The author looks forward to a country where his fourth-generation Japanese American children, the yonsei, are incontestably American, unlike the nisei who were interned during World War II, the author’s ancestors among them. A simultaneously elegant and sharp-edged exploration of the hidden past. (Kirkus)
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Cat and Bird
A writer’s lessons and insights gleaned from a life spent with cats. (Kirkus)
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Bite by Bite
Poet and essayist Nezhukumatathil ... creates a graceful memoir centered on 40 different kinds of food, some exotic, some familiar, all evoking recollections of childhood, family, travels, friendships, and much more. (Kirkus)
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Owner of A Lonely Heart
American Book Award winner Nguyen ... returns with a memoir focused on settling in Michigan after her family fled Vietnam during the war, when Nguyen was an infant. Nguyen's honesty and vulnerability will captivate readers instantly. (Library Journal)
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A Man of Two Faces
This bold and ambitious memoir from novelist Nguyen employs a dazzling hybrid of prose and poetry to explore the author’s life in America as a Vietnamese refugee. It’s a savvy and complex account of coming-of-age in a foreign land. (Publishers Weekly)
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The Translator's Daughter
When Prasad was two years old, her family moved from Taiwan to the United States due to their fear of political repression by Chiang Kai-shek's government. But when Prasad was a college student, her parents returned to Taiwan, leaving her to mostly fend for herself in the U.S. As Prasad recounts how she reclaimed her Taiwainese heritage, readers learn that she views herself as someone caught between two cultures, who wants to feel that she belongs. (Library Journal)
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Ma and Me
Piercing memoir of a mother-daughter relationship and their experiences coming to America as refugees from the Cambodian civil war in the 1970s. Well-wrought vignettes of a complicated mother-daughter bond. (Kirkus)
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Horse Barbie
A model and trans advocate recounts the story of her life, from her childhood in the Philippines to a series of careers in the U.S. A jaunty and inspiring memoir of an eventful life with many acts left to unfold. (Kirkus)
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The Way You Make Me Feel
This sinuous debut memoir-in-essays from Sharma, who is of Indian descent, utilizes her romance with Quincy Scott Jones, a Black poet, as a jumping-off point for wide-ranging meditations on American and Indian culture, racism in the U.S., and Afro-Asian solidarity. (Publishers Weekly)
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