The Library

All This Could Be Different / Sarah Thankam Mathews. by Sarah Thankam Mathews
Graduating into the trough of yet another American recession, Sneha is one of the fortunate ones. However mind-numbing the work, her entry-level consulting job is the key that unlocks every door: she can pick up the check for her growing circle of friends in Milwaukee, send money home to her parents in India, and dare to envision a stable future for herself. She even begins dating who she has long wanted-women-and soon develops a crush on Marina, a beautiful dancer who always seems just out of reach. But then, as quickly as it came together, Sneha's life begins to fall apart. All This Could Be Different is a wry, intimate, and redemptive exploration of the freedom and fragility of youth, and what it means to devote oneself to others in search of a better world.

Asian American Herbalism : Traditional and Modern Healing Practices for Everyday Wellness by Erin Masako Wilkins
Japanese American herbalist and acupuncturist Erin Masako Wilkins shares accessible and comprehensive herbal wellness practices and remedies to everyday ailments, rooted in Asian tradition, for optimal health. The first modern book on herbalism and everyday Chinese medicine by an AAPI author. Includes bibliographical references and 100 recipes to treat common ailments.

Asian American Histories of the United States by Catherine Ceniza Choy
Asian American Histories of the United States illuminates how an over-century-long history of Asian migration, labor, and community formation in the United States is fundamental to understanding the American experience and its existential crises of the early twenty-first century. Includes bibliographical references and index.

Crying in H Mart : A Memoir by Michelle Zauner
From the indie rockstar of Japanese Breakfast fame, and author of the viral 2018 New Yorker essay that shares the title of this book, an unflinching, powerful memoir about growing up Korean-American, losing her mother, and forging her own identity. In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance -told with humor and heart-Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist.

Holding Pattern by Jenny Xie
Holding Pattern is a novel about immigration and belonging, mother-daughter relationships, and the many ways we can learn to hold each other. At 28, Kathleen Cheng returns home to live with her single mother, Marissa, an immigrant from China. Her mother, to Katheen's surprise, is in love, and Kathleen helps her mother plan her wedding to a tech entrepreneur. Kathleen takes a job working for an unusual start-up, and as mother and daughter peel back the layers of their history, they come to a new understanding of how they can propel each other forward, and what they've done to hold each other back--|cProvided by publisher.

Horse Barbie : A Memoir by Geena Rocero
As a young femme growing up in Manila in the 1990s, Geena Rocero endured shouts of bakla, bakla!, a Filipino taunt aimed at her feminine sway, whenever she left the little universe of her eskinita. Eventually she found her place in trans pageants, events as widely attended and culturally significant as a national sport, going to high school by day and competing by night. By seventeen, she was the Philippines' most prominent and highest-earning trans pageant queen. When she moved to the United States, Geena was able to change her name and gender marker on her documents, which still isn't possible for trans people in the Philippines. But legal recognition didn't come with any guarantee of safety. In order to survive, Geena went stealth and hid her trans identity, gaining one type of freedom and truth at the expense of another. The tenuous, high-stakes double life finally led Geena to a breaking point when she had to decide how to reclaim the power of Horse Barbie once and for all: radiant, head held high, and unabashedly herself.

Oh My Mother! : A Memoir in Nine Adventures by Connie Wang
In each essay of this hilarious, heartfelt, and pitch-perfectly honest memoir, journalist Connie Wang explores her complicated relationship to her stubborn and charismatic mother, Qing Li, through the "oh my god" moments in their travels together. From attending a Magic Mike strip show in Vegas to experimenting with edibles in Amsterdam to flip-flopping through Versailles, this iconic mother-daughter duo venture into the world to find their place in it, and sometimes rail against it--as well as against each other.

Smithsonian Asian Pacific American History, Art, and Culture in 101 Objects by edited Theodore S. Gonzalves
A rich and compelling introduction to the history of Asian Pacific American communities as told through 101 objects from the Smithsonian collections. Includes bibliographical references and index

Speak, Okinawa : A Memoir by Elizabeth Miki Brina
A searing, deeply candid memoir about a young woman's journey to understanding her complicated parents--her father a Vietnam veteran, her mother an Okinawan war bride--and her own, fraught cultural heritage.

Stay True : A Memoir by Hua Hsu
From the New Yorker staff writer Hua Hsu, a gripping memoir on friendship, grief, the search for self, and the solace that can be found through art. In the eyes of 18-year-old Hua Hsu, the problem with Ken-with his passion for Dave Matthews, Abercrombie & Fitch, and his fraternity-is that he is exactly like everyone else. Ken, whose Japanese American family has been in the United States for generations, is mainstream; for Hua, a first-generation Taiwanese American who has a 'zine and haunts Bay Area record shops, Ken represents all that he defines himself in opposition to. The only thing Hua and Ken have in common is that, however they engage with it, American culture doesn't seem to have a place for either of them. But despite his first impressions, Hua and Ken become best friends, a friendship built of late-night conversations over cigarettes, long drives along the California coast, and the textbook successes and humiliations of everyday college life. And then violently, senselessly, Ken is gone. Determined to hold on to all that was left of his best friend-his memories-Hua turned to writing. Stay True is the book he's been working on ever since. A coming-of-age story that details both the ordinary and extraordinary, Stay True is a bracing memoir about growing up, and about moving through the world in search of meaning and belonging.

The Fervor : A Novel by Alma Katsu
1944:Following Meiko's husband's enlistment as an air force pilot in the Pacific months prior, Meiko and Aiko were taken from their home in Seattle and sent to one of the internment camps in the Midwest. It didn't matter that Aiko was American-born: They were Japanese, and therefore considered a threat by the American government. In the camp, mother and daughter are attempting to hold on to elements of their old life when a mysterious disease begins to spread among those interned. What starts as a minor cold quickly becomes spontaneous fits of violence and aggression, even death. When a disconcerting team of doctors arrive, nearly more threatening than the illness itself, Meiko and her daughter team up with a newspaper reporter and widowed missionary to investigate. It becomes clear to them that something more sinister is afoot, a demon from the stories of Meiko's childhood, hell-bent on infiltrating their already strange world. Inspired by the Japanese yokai and the jorogumo spider demon.

Things We Lost to the Water : A Novel by Eric Nguyen
When Huong arrives in New Orleans with her two young sons, she is jobless, homeless, and worried about her husband, Cong, who remains in Vietnam. As she and her boys begin to settle into life in America, she continues to send letters and tapes back to Cong, hopeful that they will be reunited and her children will grow up with a father. Over time, Huong realizes she will never see Cong again. While she copes with this loss, her sons, Tuan and Binh, grow up in their absent father's shadow, haunted by a man and a country trapped in their memory and imagination. As they push forward, the three adapt to life in America in different ways: Huong takes up with a Vietnamese car salesman who is also new in town; Tuan tries to connect with his heritage by joining a local Vietnamese gang; and Binh, now going by Ben, embraces his burgeoning sexuality. Their search for identity--as individuals and as a family--tears them apart, until disaster strikes and they must find a new way to come together and honor the ties that bind them.