Javier Zamora's adventure is a three-thousand-mile journey from his small town in El Salvador, through Guatemala and Mexico, and across the U.S. border. He will leave behind his beloved aunt and grandparents to reunite with a mother who left four years ago and a father he barely remembers. Traveling alone amid a group of strangers and a "coyote" hired to lead them to safety, Javier expects his trip to last two short weeks.
At nine years old, all Javier can imagine is rushing into his parents' arms, snuggling in bed between them, and living under the same roof again. He cannot foresee the perilous boat trips, relentless desert treks, pointed guns, arrests and deceptions that await him; nor can he know that those two weeks will expand into two life-altering months alongside fellow migrants who will come to encircle him like an unexpected family.
A memoir as gripping as it is moving, Solito provides an immediate and intimate account not only of a treacherous and near-impossible journey, but also of the miraculous kindness and love delivered at the most unexpected moments. Solito is Javier Zamora's story, but it's also the story of millions of others who had no choice but to leave home.
Winner of the Los Angeles Times Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiography
Winner of the American Library Association Alex Award
A transcendent journey about growth and healing, ancestry and honoring ones roots and expatriation, and rising up to find a home within yourself. Poetry for those who think they don't like poetry.
The Sympathizer is a sweeping epic of love and betrayal. The narrator, a communist double agent, is a “man of two minds," a half-French, half-Vietnamese army captain who arranges to come to America after the Fall of Saigon, and while building a new life with other Vietnamese refugees in Los Angeles is secretly reporting back to his communist superiors in Vietnam. The Sympathizer is a blistering exploration of identity and America, a gripping espionage novel, and a powerful story of love and friendship. - From the publisher
Pulitzer Prize
International Dublin Literary Award
Andrew Carnegie Medal
Edgar Award
Asian Pacific American Award
ALA Notable
Booklist Editor's Choice
New York Times Notable
Riley and Jen have been best friends since they were children. It never mattered to them that Riley is black and Jen is white, and as adults, they remain as close as sisters. Jen is married and pregnant, while Riley is a television journalist poised to become one of the first Black female anchors in Philadelphia. But when Jen's city police officer husband is involved in the shooting of an unarmed Black teenager, Jen's friendship with Riley is thrown into uncertainty. Covering this career-making story, Riley wrestles with the implications of this tragic incident for her Black community, her ambitions, and her relationship with her lifelong friend.
"Whiskey Tender is a memoir of family and survival, coming-of-age on and off the reservation, and the frictions between being raised to strive towards the American dream while also coming into an understanding of how the narratives of the Quechan Nation and Laguna Pueblo heritages have been excluded from the central mythologies and structures of America"-- Provided by publisher.; "Deborah Jackson Taffa was raised to believe that some sacrifices were necessary to achieve a better life. Her grandparents--citizens of the Quechan Nation and Laguna Pueblo tribe--were sent to Indian boarding schools run by white missionaries, while her parents were encouraged to take part in governmental job training off the reservation. Assimilation meant relocation, but as Taffa matured into adulthood, she began to question the promise handed down by her elders and by American society: that if she gave up her culture, her land, and her traditions, she would not only be accepted, but would be able to achieve the 'American Dream.' Whiskey Tender traces how a mixed tribe native girl--born on the California Yuma reservation and raised in Navajo territory in New Mexico--comes to her own interpretation of identity, despite her parent's desires for her to transcend the class and 'Indian' status of her birth through education, and despite the Quechan tribe's particular traditions and beliefs regarding oral and recorded histories. Taffa's childhood memories unspool into meditations on tribal identity, the rampant criminalization of Native men, governmental assimilation policies, the Red Power movement, and the negotiation between belonging and resisting systemic oppression. Pan-Indian, as well as specific tribal histories and myths, blend with stories of a 1970s and 1980s childhood spent on and off the reservation. Taffa offers a sharp and thought-provoking historical analysis laced with humor and heart. As she reflects on her past and present--the promise of assimilation and the many betrayals her family has suffered, both personal and historical; trauma passed down through generations--she reminds us of how the cultural narratives of her ancestors have been excluded from the central mythologies and structures of the 'melting pot' of America, revealing all that is sacrificed for the promise of acceptance." -- Provided by publisher.
Cinnamon Jones dreams of stepping on stage and acting her heart out like her famous grandparents, Redwood and Wildfire. But at 5'10" and 180 pounds, she's theatrically challenged. Her family life is a tangle of mystery and deadly secrets, and nobody is telling Cinnamon the whole truth. Before her older brother died, he gave Cinnamon The Chronicles of the Great Wanderer, a tale of a Dahomean warrior woman and an alien from another dimension who perform in Paris and at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. The Chronicles may be magic or alien science, but the story is definitely connected to Cinnamon's family secrets. When an act of violence wounds her family, Cinnamon and her theatre squad determine to solve the mysteries and bring her worlds together
