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House of sticks : a memoir / by Tran, Ly,1989-author.;
"A powerful memoir by 25-year-old Ly Tran about her immigrant experience and her recent family history in the aftermath of the war that spans from Vietnam to Brooklyn, and ultimately to the Ivy League."--Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Tran, Ly, 1989-; Tran, Ly, 1989-; Immigrant youth; Vietnamese American women;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Illegal [videorecording] : one immigrant's life or death journey to the American dream / by Alexander, Nick,film director.; Ayala, Lazaro,screenwriter,film producer.; Freestyle Digital Media,publisher.; Yes We Can (Firm),presenter.;
A feature-length documentary about the miraculous journey of Salvadoran immigrant Laz Ayala's life or death path to U.S. citizenship, the challenges of present-day immigration, and his mission to humanize immigrants and reform immigration for the benefit of all.E.Closed-captioned for the hearing impaired.DVD ; full screen presentation ; Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital 2.0.
Subjects: Biographical films.; Documentary films.; Nonfiction films.; Video recordings for the hearing impaired.; Ayala, Lazaro.; Ayala, Lazaro; Emigration and immigration law; Emigration and immigration; Immigrant youth; Salvadorans;
For private home use only.
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Born to walk : my journey of trials and resilience / by Nkuranga, Alpha,author.;
"'My grandparents used to tell me Rwanda is a country unlike any other, and I knew they spoke the truth. Blessed with majestic mountains and breathtaking valleys, it is a sacred and spiritual land. And yet Rwandan men drenched the land in blood in acts of hate so horrific that the stains of those three years will not fade in one hundred lifetimes.' At the age of eight, Alpha Nkuranga made a fateful decision. With war raging around her, she grabbed the hand of her younger brother, Elijah, and ran from her grandparents' home. When they came to a swamp, they hid until it was safe to escape. Weeks later, they joined a group of refugees, who were fleeing to Tanzania. 'If I kept walking,' Alpha remembers thinking, 'I could tell my story.' Alpha Nkuranga emigrated to Canada more than a decade later. She now works with women and children who face abuse and homelessness. In Born to Walk, she tells a remarkable story of resistance and survival."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Nkuranga, Alpha; Nkuranga, Alpha.; Immigrants; Resilience (Personality trait); Victims of family violence;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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Solito : a memoir / by Zamora, Javier,author.;
"When Javier Zamora was nine, he traveled unaccompanied by bus, boat, and foot from El Salvador to the United States to reunite with his parents. This is his memoir of that dangerous journey, a nine-week odyssey that nearly ended in calamity on multiple occasions. It's a miracle that Javier survived the crossing and a miracle that he has the talent to now tell his story so masterfully. While Solito is Javier's story, it's also the story of millions of others who have risked so much to come to this country. A memoir that reads like a novel, rooted in precise and authentic detail, Solito is destined to be a classic of the immigration experience"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Zamora, Javier.; Zamora, Javier; Border crossing; Illegal immigration; Noncitizen children; Noncitizens; Noncitizens; Poets, American; Salvadoran Americans; Salvadorans; Unaccompanied immigrant children;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Beautiful country : a memoir / by Wang, Qian Julie,1987-author.;
"An incandescent and heartrending memoir about Qian Julie Wang's five years living undocumented after immigrating with her parents from China to New York City in 1994. In Chinese the word for the United States, Mei Guo, translates directly to "beautiful country," but when seven-year-old Qian is plucked from her warm and happy childhood surrounded by extended family in China, she finds a world of crushing fear and poverty instead. Unable to speak English at first, Qian is isolated and disregarded, put into special education classes because she doesn't speak the language and humiliated by teachers and classmates when she struggles to pay attention because of hunger or exhaustion. She encounters racism, and people of other races, for the first time, shocked at where her family fits in comparison to their status as educated elites in China. After school she works shifts alongside her mother in Chinatown sweatshops. There is so much about Qian's new home that doesn't make sense, but the rules of survival are drilled into her head: If you see a policeman, you must run in the other direction. If anyone asks--or even if they don't--you tell them you were born here. Do as you're told or we could be separated forever. Understanding impliclity the toll this has taken on her parents, Qian tries desperately to cheer them up and mediate their increasingly heated arguments, certain that if she is good enough, she can hold the family together. In remarkable, unsentimental prose Wang channels her childhood perspective, illuminating the cruelty and indignity of America's immigration system, while also crafting a narrative of resilience from her family's small moments of joy: their first slice of pizza, "shopping days" when the family would unearth unlikely treasures in Brooklyn's trash, and the necessary escape she found in books at the local library. Searing and unforgettable, Beautiful Country is an essential book about the cost of making a home in a hostile land from an astonishing new talent"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Wang, Qian Julie, 1987-; Wang, Qian Julie, 1987-; Chinese Americans; Illegal aliens; Immigrants;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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Stay true : a memoir / by Hsu, Hua,1977-author.;
"From the New Yorker staff writer Hua Hsu, a gripping memoir on friendship, grief, the search for self, and the solace that can be found through art. In the eyes of 18-year-old Hua Hsu, the problem with Ken--with his passion for Dave Matthews, Abercrombie & Fitch, and his fraternity--is that he is exactly like everyone else. Ken, whose Japanese American family has been in the United States for generations, is mainstream; for Hua, a first-generation Taiwanese American who has a 'zine and haunts Bay Area record shops, Ken represents all that he defines himself in opposition to. The only thing Hua and Ken have in common is that, however they engage with it, American culture doesn't seem to have a place for either of them. But despite his first impressions, Hua and Ken become best friends, a friendship built of late-night conversations over cigarettes, long drives along the California coast, and the textbook successes and humiliations of everyday college life. And then violently, senselessly, Ken is gone, killed in a carjacking, not even three years after the day they first meet. Determined to hold on to all that was left of his best friend--his memories--Hua turned to writing. Stay True is the book he's been working on ever since. A coming-of-age story that details both the ordinary and extraordinary, Stay True is a bracing memoir about growing up, and about moving through the world in search of meaning and belonging"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Hsu, Hua, 1977-; Hsu, Hua, 1977-; Ishida, Kenneth N., 1977-1998.; University of California, Berkeley; Children of immigrants; Coming of age.; Murder victims; Popular culture; Taiwanese Americans; Taiwanese Americans;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Better with books : 500 diverse books to ignite empathy and encourage self-acceptance in tweens and teens / by Hart, Melissa,1970-author.; Draper, Sharon M.(Sharon Mills),writer of foreword.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Needed now more than ever: a guide that includes 500 diverse contemporary fiction and memoir recommendations for preteens and teens with the goal of inspiring greater empathy for themselves, their peers, and the world around them. As young people are diagnosed with anxiety and depression in increasing numbers, or dealing with other issues that can isolate them from family and friends-such as bullying, learning disabilities, racism, or homophobia-characters in books can help them feel less alone. And just as important, reading books that feature a diverse range of real-life topics helps generate openness, empathy, and compassion in all kids. Better with Books is a valuable resource for parents, teachers, librarians, therapists, and all caregivers who recognize the power of literature to improve young readers' lives. Each chapter explores a particular issue affecting preteens and teens today and includes a list of recommended related books-all published within the last decade. Recommendations are grouped by age: those appropriate for middle-grade readers and those for teens. Reading lists are organized around: Adoption and foster care; Body image; Immigration; Learning challenges; LGBTQIA+ youth; Mental health; Nature and environmentalism; Physical disability; Poverty and homelessness; Race and ethnicity; Religion and spirituality"--
Subjects: Teenagers; Children; Empathy in children.; Self-acceptance in adolescence.; Parent and child.; Books and reading.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Saga boy : my life of Blackness and becoming / by Downing, Antonio Michael,1975-author.;
Antonio Michael Downing's memoir of creativity and transformation is a startling mash-up of memories and mythology, told in gripping, lyrical prose. Raised by his indomitable grandmother in the lush rainforest of southern Trinidad, Downing, at age 11, is uprooted to Canada when she dies. But to a very unusual part of Canada: he and his older brother are sent to live with his stern, evangelical Aunt Joan, in Wabigoon, a tiny northern Ontario community where they are the only black children in the town. In this wilderness, he begins his journey as an immigrant minority, using music and performance to dramatically transform himself. At the heart of his odyssey is the longing for a home. He is re-united with his birth parents who he has known only through stories. But this proves disappointing: Al is a womanizing con man and drug addict, and Gloria, twice abandoned by Al, seems to regard her sons as cash machines. He tries to flee his messy family life by transforming into a series of extravagant musical personalities: "Mic Dainjah", a punk rock rapper, "Molasses", a soul music crooner and finally "John Orpheus", a gold chained, sequin- and leather-clad pop star. Yet, like his father and grandfather, he has become a "Saga Boy", a Trinidadian playboy, addicted to escapism, attention, and sex. When the inevitable crash happens, he finds himself in a cold, stone jail cell. He has become everything he was trying to escape and must finally face himself. Richly evocative, Saga Boy is a heart-wrenching but uplifting story of a lonely immigrant boy who overcomes adversity and abandonment to reclaim his black identity and embrace a rich heritage.
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Downing, Antonio Michael, 1975-; Downing, Antonio Michael, 1975-; Authors, Canadian (English); Musicians; Musicians;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Policing Black lives : state violence in Canada from slavery to the present / by Maynard, Robyn,1987-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Policing Black Bodies is a timely and much-needed exposure of historical and contemporary practices of state-sanctioned violence against Black lives in Canada. This groundbreaking work dispels many prevailing myths that cast Canada as a land of benevolence and racial equality, and uncovers long-standing state practices that have restricted Black freedom. A first of its kind, Policing Black Bodies creates a framework that makes legible how anti-Blackness has influenced the construction of Canada's carceral landscape, including the development and application of numerous criminal law enforcement and border regulation practices. The book traces the historical and contemporary mobilization of anti-Blackness spanning from slavery, 19th and 20th century segregation practices, and the application of early drug and prostitution laws through to the modern era. Maynard makes visible the ongoing legacy of a demonized and devalued Blackness that is manifest today as racial profiling by police, immigration agents and social services, the over-representation of Black communities in jails and prisons, anti-Black immigration detention and deportation practices, the over-representation of Black youth in state care, the school-to-prison pipeline and gross economic inequality. Following the dictums of the Black Lives Matter movement, Policing Black Bodies adopts an intersectional lens that explores the realities of those whose lives and experiences have historically been marginalized, stigmatized, and made invisible. In addressing how state practices have impacted Black lives, the book brings from margin to centre an analysis of gender, class, sexuality, (dis)ability, citizenship and criminalization. Beyond exploring systemic racial injustice, Policing Black Bodies pushes the limits of the Black radical imagination: it delves into liberatory Black futures and urges the necessity of transformative alternatives."--
Subjects: Blacks; Blacks; Race discrimination;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The woo woo : how I survived ice hockey, drug raids, demons, and my crazy Chinese family / by Wong, Lindsay,1987-author.;
"In this jaw-dropping, darkly comedic memoir, a young woman comes of age in a dysfunctional Asian family who blame their woes on ghosts and demons when they should really be on anti-psychotic meds. Lindsay Wong grew up with a paranoid schizophrenic grandmother and a mother who was deeply afraid of the "woo-woo" -- Chinese ghosts who come to visit in times of personal turmoil. From a young age, she witnessed the woo-woo's sinister effects; when she was six, Lindsay and her mother avoided the dead people haunting their house by hiding out in a mall food court, and on a camping trip, in an effort to rid her daughter of demons, her mother tried to light Lindsay's foot on fire. The eccentricities take a dark turn, however, and when Lindsay starts to experience symptoms of the woo-woo herself, she wonders whether she will suffer the same fate as her family. At once a witty and touching memoir about the Asian immigrant experience and a harrowing and honest depiction of the vagaries of mental illness, The Woo-Woo is a gut-wrenching and beguiling manual for surviving family, and oneself."--
Subjects: Autobiographies.; Biographies.; Wong, Lindsay, 1987-; Wong, Lindsay, 1987-; Wong, Lindsay, 1987-; Wong, Lindsay, 1987-; Chinese Canadians; Psychoses; Psychoses;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 2
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