Memoirs are a wonderful way to experience what Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop termed "mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors," the ways we as readers can see ourselves and others through books. Given that more than 120 million people worldwide have been forcibly displaced, reading the stories of refugees and immigrants is particularly important for highlighting the individual humanity in that unimaginable number.
The Best We Could Do, a graphic memoir by Thi Bui and the 2019 Seattle Reads book, tells the story of Bui's family, starting with the birth of her son and rewinding to share the lives of her parents in Vietnam and their eventual journey to the United States in the 1970s. Returning to themes of parenting, sacrifice, and the search for stability, Bui beautifully captures the complexity of her family through subtle colors and elegant artwork. "She embraces the whole of it: the misery of the Vietnam War, the alien land of America, and the liminal space she occupies, as the child with so much on her shoulders. In this mélange of comedy and tragedy, family love and brokenness, she finds beauty." (Publishers Weekly)
Tessa Hulls' Feeding Ghosts offers a different, darker graphic memoir perspective of the impact of intergenerational trauma from political persecution and mental illness. The local author excavates her grandmother's storied legacy, a woman who she has only known as severely mentally ill, in and out of psychiatric hospitals, but who was a best-selling author and journalist in China. Hulls tracks her family's story with major events in Chinese history, including Mao's ascension to power, the family's moves for safety, and the complicated maternal relationships between her grandmother, mother, and herself. After years of running to remote locales to escape the codependency she witnessed between her mother and grandmother, Hulls and her mother take a trip to China and Hong Kong to uncover the past and move forward together.
Asylum by Edafe Okporo is a moving memoir and manifesto chronicling his experience as a gay Nigerian man seeking asylum in the United States. After waking up to a violent mob outside his home in Nigeria, Okporo knew that his work as an AIDS activist and his efforts to destigmatize homosexuality had put his life in danger. He made it to the United States just days before the 2016 Presidential Election and spent months in an immigration detention facility in New Jersey. Though he was finally granted asylum, Okporo outlines the incredible difficulty of making it through the complicated legal processes and the United States' failure to integrate refugees and asylees into American life. Okporo masterfully critiques what it means to be free in America and imagines a future in which everyone, regardless of their place of birth, is offered justice, honesty, and compassion.
For more immigrant and refugee memoirs, check out the list: Book Bingo NW 2024: Refugee/Immigrant Memoir.
For more ideas for books to meet your Summer Book Bingo challenge, follow our Shelf Talk BookBingoNW2024 series or check the hashtag #BookBingoNW2024 on social media. Book Bingo is presented in partnership with Seattle Arts & Lectures.
~ posted by Jane S.
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