I still remember being mesmerized by the magical world of Harry Potter. Reading about Hogwarts, I longed to recieve my own letter that would send me to the best wizarding school in the world. When September 1st came, my mailbox was empty but this series had a lasting influence on my love for reading. I loved how completely books could pull me into another world. Books gave me somewhere to disappear into when I didn’t really want to deal with my own for a while.
As I got older, I explored historical fiction. I like learning about the past through the lives of people who experienced it, then thinking about how those histories still shape the way we understand the world today. I found myself reading stories about different countries, cultures, and periods of history, and eventually started looking for books that explored migration and diaspora too.
Recently, I've been getting into memoirs because I get to see the world through someone else’s life. Reading about how another person understands their family, their home, or where they come from often makes me think differently about my own experiences. That’s what led me toward many of the writers I recommend here, especially immigrant writers whose stories have helped me understand the complicated ways people carry home with them.
Year: 2018
Author: Jose Antonio Vargas
Genre: Memoir
Favorite Quote: “I decided to show up tonight because that’s what immigrants, undocumented and documented, do: We show up. Despite the obvious risks and palpable fear, we show up to”
Vargas writes about growing up in the United States as an undocumented immigrant, only discovering the truth about his immigration status as a teenager. He puts an extremely personal story behind a subject that is often reduced to laws and statistics. Bringing his readers into the way his mind works and into conversations he had, this book reveals the tribulations undocumented immigrants face that we think are everyday menial tasks. Even more so, his writing made me think about how complicated the idea of “belonging” can become when the place you call home does not legally recognize you as its own.
Year: 2017
Author: Mohsin Hamid
Genre: Magical Realism, Literary Fiction, Speculative Fiction
Favorite Quote: “. . . but that is the way of things, for when we migrate, we murder from our lives those we leave behind.”
This novel follows Nadia and Saeed, a young couple who fall in love while their unnamed country is being torn apart by war. As they flee through magical doors that transport them to different parts of the world, the story explores what it means to leave home and try to build a new one. Hamid’s language is simple but incredibly evocative, and I love how vulnerable his characters feel. Their fear, uncertainty, and changing relationship made me think about questions I hadn’t really considered before: What do we owe the places we leave behind? How much of ourselves can we carry when everything around us changes? And at what point does somewhere new start to feel like home?
Year: 1989
Author: Amy Tan
Genre: Historical Fiction
Favorite Quote: “I wanted my children to have the best combination: American circumstances and Chinese character. How could I know these two things do not mix?”
Amy Tan tells the stories of four Chinese immigrant mothers and their American-born daughters, moving between their lives in China and the United States. I love how the book explores the misunderstandings that can grow between generations, especially when they have very different relationships with culture and home. It reminded me that immigration doesn't end when someone arrives somewhere new. Its effects can continue through an entire family.
Year: 2019
Author: Ocean Vuong
Genre: Epistolary Novel, Bildungsroman
Favorite Quote: “You once told me that memory is a choice. But if you were god, you'd know it's a flood.”
Written as a letter from a son to his mother, the novel moves through family history, immigration, memory, and growing up as a Vietnamese American. Vuong's writing makes ordinary memories feel incredibly intimate, while slowly revealing the experiences that shaped his family. I recommend it for anyone who likes books that make you stop and reread a sentence because it somehow says something you’ve felt but never knew how to explain.
Year: 2013
Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Genre: Fiction, Romance, Bildungsroman
Favorite Quote: “If you don’t understand, ask questions. If you’re uncomfortable about asking questions, say you are uncomfortable about asking questions and then ask them anyway. It’s easy to tell when a question is coming from a good place. Then listen some more. Sometimes people just want to feel heard. Here’s to possibilities of friendship and connection and understanding.”
Ifemelu leaves Nigeria to attend university in the United States, where she begins confronting race, identity, relationships, and what it means to become an immigrant. I especially like how the novel looks at the differences between how someone understands themselves at home and how they are perceived somewhere else. It captures that strange process of changing because of a new place while still carrying your old one with you.
Year: 2003
Author: Jhumpa Lahiri
Genre: Bildungsroman, Domestic Fiction
Favorite Quote: “Though no longer pregnant, she continues, at times, to mix Rice Krispies and peanuts and onions in a bowl. For being a foreigner Ashima is beginning to realize, is a sort of lifelong pregnancy -- a perpetual wait, a constant burden, a continuous feeling out of sorts. It is an ongoing responsibility, a parenthesis in what had once been an ordinary life, only to discover that previous life has vanished, replaced by something more complicated and demanding. Like pregnancy, being a foreigner, Ashima believes, is something that elicits the same curiosity of from strangers, the same combination of pity and respect.”
Gogol Ganguli has never liked his name, but his name turns out to be tied to much more than he realizes. As the American-born son of Bengali immigrants, he spends much of the novel trying to understand the distance between his life and his parents' past. I loved how Lahiri explores identity. Nothing has to be dramatic for someone to feel like they are living between two worlds.
Year: 2021
Author: Michelle Zauner
Genre: Memoir
Favorite Quote: “She was both my first and second word, umma then mom.”
Michelle Zauner writes about losing her Korean mother and the parts of herself she feels she is losing with her. Food becomes one of the ways she remembers her mother and reconnects with her Korean heritage. This memoir made me think about how culture can survive in really ordinary things, even after the person who introduced you to it is gone. Zauner's language throughout her book is rich in imagery, making readers feel they are in the same room as her, eating the same foods she grew up with. A great book for anyone feeling homesick and feeling nostalgic for the foods their mothers made them growing up.
Year: 2015
Author: Mia Alvar
Genre: Literary Fiction, Short Stories
Favorite Quote: “This house would still be this house, Manila still the city where she had her son, this country still the country that took everything away. You couldn't erase history, but you could close up chapters of it, just as in a textbook.”
Mia Alvar's collection moves between the Philippines and the lives of Filipinos living abroad. I especially value this book because Filipino migration is such a huge part of our history, yet the Filipino diaspora is rarely the focus of the stories we study or hear about. Alvar gives space to experiences that can easily get overlooked, showing how different people understand leaving home, living abroad, and finding their place within a diaspora. For me, In the Country feels important because it gives Filipino stories the attention they deserve.
