Immigrant Memoirs

For all of the West's failings—terrible food, cold weather and questionable politicians with funny hair to name a few—it has its upsides. Konstantin would know. Growing up in the Soviet Union, he experienced first-hand the horrors of a socialist paradise gone wrong, having lived in extreme poverty with little access to even the most basic of necessities. It wasn't until he moved to the UK that Kisin found himself thriving in an open and tolerant society, receiving countless opportunities he would never have had otherwise.

From standup comedian Youngmi Mayer, an unforgettable memoir written with “raw, enviable freedom that simply floors you,” interrogating whiteness, gender, and sexuality in America, navigating a tumultuous childhood in Korea and Saipan, and coming to terms with her parents’ shortcomings...

American-born Catherine knows little of her Croatian mother's early life. When Marijana dies of ovarian cancer, 22-year-old Catherine finds herself cut off from the past she never really knew. As Catherine searches for clues to her mother's elusive history, she discovers that Marijana was orphaned during WWII, nearly died as a teenager, and escaped from Communist Yugoslavia to Rome, and then South America. Through travel and memory, history and imagination, Catherine resurrects the relatives she's never known.

AN NAACP IMAGE AWARD NOMINEE America’s most popular sports media figure tells it like it is in this “raw, deeply authentic, and immensely entertaining” (Bob Iger, #1 New York Times bestselling author and CEO of The Walt Disney Company) book, not only dishing out his signature, uninhibited...

Frank Lorenzo is the epitome of the American dream. A first-generation American and entrepreneur, Lorenzo started an airline advisory business in his mid-twenties and ultimately rose to control the largest fleet of airplanes in the free world. Flying for Peanuts explains how the son of Spanish immigrants put himself through Columbia College by driving a Coca-Cola truck and then grew the fledgling advisory into ownership of Texas International Airlines. From there, Lorenzo became CEO of Continental Airlines, a large loss-making west coast airline at the time.

“In this vulnerable and courageous memoir, Prachi Gupta takes the myth of the exceptional Indian American family to task.”—The Washington Post “I read it in one sitting. Wow. It aims right at the tender spot where racism, sexism, and family dynamics collide, and somehow manages to be...

Read by the author. A love letter to America from the pen of actor, producer, immigrant, and activist Wilmer Valderrama. In this timely memoir, Valderrama looks back on his journey from a tiny pueblo in Venezuela to the big city of Los Angeles—how he discovered his calling as an actor and...

Pakistani American Farah Naz Rishi’s first year of college was perfectly, thankfully, uneventful. After all, she was in college to learn and forge a path of self-sufficiency, especially after her last relationship fell apart—dashing her mother’s aspirations for an early marriage. What could Farah expect, anyway? For the ideal guy to just conveniently waltz into her life? Life isn’t a love story.

He signed up to sail on SS Rajputana as soon as he'd heard it was bound for Canada. By the time the ship reached port in Esquimalt, British Columbia, in November of 1939, his decision had already been made. He had reached the land of freedom, and if he were to ever provide a better life for his wife and children, he couldn't possibly return to Bombay. With a heart full of hope, and only four dollars in his pocket, he slipped away from his crew. This is the story of Gafoor Khan, an illegal immigrant and a courageous man.

This “vivid, moving, funny, and heartfelt” memoir tells the story of Curtis Chin’s time growing up as a gay Chinese American kid in 1980’s Detroit (Lisa Ko, author of The Leavers). Nineteen eighties Detroit was a volatile place to live, but above the fray stood a safe haven: Chung’s...

The American dream is alive and well in this memoir of a Muslim immigrant from India who arrived planning to start a business, working so hard toward his personal goals that he even pumped gas and sold vacuum cleaners door to door. Victor Begg successfully built a thriving, regional chain of furniture stores. Along the way, he discovered that America’s greatest promise lies in building healthy communities with our neighbors.

After a life filled with danger, love and death, Barbara, now in her sixties, is living a simple life in San Francisco. And then, almost on a whim, she runs for Congress and sets in motion a series of adventures that brings her back to the excitement of the times, to a renewal of romantic love, to mortal danger as a reporter in Central America, to loss and tragedy, and in the end, to an exultant embracing of life.

Guillermo Vicente Vidal's memoir chronicles his journey from Castro's Cuba to the United States - a tapestry of his coming of age, a broken family, and disorientation of political unrest. Vidal was barely 10 years old when he proudly shook the hand of Fidel Castro. Although Vidal's parents were once staunch supporters of La Revolucion, they soon found they could no longer keep their sons safe in the new face of Castro's reign, making the difficult decision to send Vidal and his brothers to the US via Operation Peter Pan in 1961.

The riveting true story of Noel W. Lamidey, an English immigrant who arrived in Australia in the 1920s and went on to establish one of the most extraordinary migration schemes the world had ever seen. Immigrants and Spies is the story of Noel W. Lamidey, who in 1946 was sent to London by the Chifley government to establish Australia's migration scheme. It describes the trials and tribulations he had in establishing such a gigantic organisation for Australia in another country.

A frank and entertaining memoir, from the daughter of Edward Said, about growing up second-generation Arab American and struggling with that identity. The daughter of a prominent Palestinian father and a sophisticated Lebanese mother, Najla Said grew up in New York City, confused and conflicted...

Now featuring exclusive new material including excerpts from Desi Arnaz’s unpublished second memoir and commentary by daughter Lucie Arnaz, here is the expanded edition of the New York Times bestselling memoir of Cuban American entertainment legend, TV pioneer, and I Love Lucy star Desi Arnaz...

Helena Rho was six years old when her family left Seoul, Korea, for America and its opportunities. Years later, her Korean-ness behind her, Helena had everything a model minority was supposed to want: she was married to a white American doctor and had a beautiful home, two children, and a career as an assistant professor of pediatrics. For decades she fulfilled the expectations of others. All the while Helena kept silent about the traumas - both professional and personal - that left her anxious yet determined to escape.

The only thing my father ever said about his Italian immigrant family was that his parents died in the 1930s, shortly after arriving at Ellis Island. Except they didn't. Once I began the search for my grandparents, I mostly ran into dead-ends. Until the 1940 census. My grandparents magically appear, but as inmates at the Rockland Insane Asylum. What happened? Why all the secrecy? And how did I use genealogy to unravel the mystery?

Questions about color, race, and migration permeate the very fabric of our consciousness - including the workforce. This audiobook attempts to answer these questions by proposing seven transformative principles (with true-life stories and lessons) - that will help steer the listener to forging a practical plan of action for navigating the gnarly waters of corporate America.

Focused on faith and woven with Christian, ecumenical, and patriotic themes, Our Immigrants’ Son is an exploration and celebration of family. The genres of prose poetry and historical fiction very cleverly takes you through the author’s rich Irish American history. It begins in misty Ireland and takes you through generations of the Murphy clan while also teaching you how to write your family story.