Nonfiction for Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month
May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month! Explore these nonfiction and memoir titles that highlight AAPI history and lived experience, selected by a librarian at The Seattle Public Library.
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Boat Baby
In a memoir where heroism meets humor, NBC News anchor and correspondent Vicky Nguyen tells the story of her family's daring escape from communist Vietnam and her unlikely journey from refugee to reporter with laughter and fierce love. (Publisher description)
Format: Book
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To Save and to Destroy
This trenchant compendium of lectures by Pulitzer Prize--winning novelist Nguyen expounds on "what it means to write and read from the position of an other." The entries are consistently thought-provoking and cogently argued. This will leave readers with plenty to chew on. (Publishers Weekly)
Format: Book
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The Memory of Taste
Top Chef alumnus Phu has created a stunning, in-depth exploration of Vietnamese cuisine. The book, a loving tribute to the culinary lessons Phu learned from his mother, begins in their homeland and follows their immigration to the U.S. A solid choice for combining family history with traditional and modern Vietnamese cuisine. (Library Journal)
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Sorry for the Inconvenience
In this openhearted account, Rishi discusses growing up in a Pakistani American family in Pennsylvania, the dissolution of one romantic relationship, and the possible kindling of another .With forthright prose and dashes of acerbic humor, Rishi does justice to the complexities of inchoate affection and cross-cultural clashes. It's powerful stuff. (Publishers Weekly)
Format: Book
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Call This Mutiny
The thrilling latest by Santos Perez (from unincorporated territory ) gathers previously uncollected poems in a powerhouse package of decolonial Indigenous insight. A Chamoru poet native to Guam, he confronts the ongoing legacies of European settler colonialism and past injustices across Pacific islands to the U.S. mainland and beyond. (Publishers Weekly)
Format: Book
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Love, Queenie
Sen’s thorough research, graceful prose, and nuanced analyses of the systems of oppression framing Oberon’s life offer a layered and engrossing portrait of a woman who skyrocketed to well-earned stardom while enduring the trauma of hiding her race. An extraordinary biography of an extraordinary South Asian woman. (Kirkus)
Format: Book
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Kinda Korean
In this courageous memoir of parental love, intergenerational trauma, and perseverance, Joan Sung breaks the generational silence that curses her family. (Publisher description)
Format: Book
Availability: All copies in use
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Q & A
Tomine’s writing is compassionate, empathetic, and tongue-in-cheek, and his narratorial voice has the intimate, confessional frankness of a good friend. The book’s visuals - which include Tomine’s illustrations - are a welcome addition to the text. A cartoonist’s gentle and charming epistolary memoir. (Kirkus)
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Moving Mountains
In November 1977, over twenty thousand participants, mostly women, gathered in Houston for the first and only US National Women's Conference, funded by the federal government with the goal of creating a national women's agenda. MOVING MOUNTAINS centers the more than eighty Asian American and Pacific Islander delegates who politically mobilized around women's rights and other issues to transform their communities and their status in the nation-state. (Publisher description)
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Reading the Room
Reading the Room is Paul Yamazaki's love letter to the work of bookselling and an engaged life of the mind. (Publisher description)
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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