Immigrant Memoirs

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.

At the end of the Vietnam War, when Beth Nguyen was eight months old, she and her father, sister, grandmother, and uncles fled Saigon for America. Beth’s mother stayed—or was left—behind, and they did not meet again until Beth was 19. Over the course of her adult life, she and her mother have spent less than 24 hours together. Owner of a Lonely Heart is a memoir about parenthood, absence, and the condition of being a refugee: the story of Beth’s relationship with her mother.

Growing up in Yakima, Washington, Noe Álvarez worked at an apple-packing plant alongside his mother. A university scholarship offered escape, but as a first-generation Latino college-goer, Álvarez struggled to fit in. At 19, he learned about a Native American/First Nations movement called the Peace and Dignity Journeys, epic marathons meant to renew cultural connections across North America. He dropped out of school and joined a group runners, all fleeing difficult beginnings. Telling their stories and his own, Álvarez writes about a four-month-long journey from Canada to Guatemala.

The moving story of an Irish immigrant's life from a poverty-stricken childhood in Ireland to becoming a captain of industry, After the Roof Caved In is a powerful, poignant look at how hard work and education enabled one young man to change his life and circumstances completely.

Wyclef Jean is one of the most influential voices in hip-hop. He rocketed to fame in the 1990s with the Fugees, whose multiplatinum album, The Score, would prove a landmark in music history, winning two Grammys and going on to become one of the best-selling hip-hop albums of all time. In Purpose, Wyclef recounts his path to fame from his impoverished childhood in "Baby Doc" Duvalier's Haiti and the mean streets of Brooklyn and Newark to the bright lights of the world stage.

In this deeply personal book, the celebrated Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat reflects on art and exile. Inspired by Albert Camus and adapted from her own lectures for Princeton University’s Toni Morrison Lecture Series, here Danticat tells stories of artists who create despite (or because of) the horrors that drove them from their homelands. Combining memoir and essay, these moving and eloquent pieces examine what it means to be an artist from a country in crisis.

Growing up in rural El Salvador in the wake of the civil war, the United States was a distant fantasy to identical twins Ernesto and Raul Flores - until, at age 17, a deadly threat from the region’s brutal gangs forces them to flee the only home they’ve ever known. In this urgent chronicle of contemporary immigration, journalist Lauren Markham follows the Flores twins as they make their way across the Rio Grande and the Texas desert, into the hands of immigration authorities, and from there to their estranged older brother in Oakland, CA.

Award-winning memoirist and New York Times best-selling author Nuala O'Faolain branches into new territory with her biography of the infamous Irish-American prostitute and thief Chicago May. O'Faolain uses May's autobiography, primary sources from the turn of the 19th century, and her own experience as an Irishwoman to bring May and all her heartache, deception, and violence to life.

America Ferrera has always felt wholly American, and yet, her identity is inextricably linked to her parents’ homeland and Honduran culture. Speaking Spanish at home, having Saturday morning salsa-dance parties in the kitchen, and eating tamales alongside apple pie at Christmas never seemed at odds with her American identity. Still, she yearned to see that identity reflected in the larger American narrative. Now, in American Like Me, America invites 31 of her friends, peers, and heroes to share their stories about life between cultures.

Witty, sharp, and unflinching, I Named My Dog Pushkin will have fans of Samantha Irby and Jenny Lawson howling with laughter at Margarita’s catastrophes, her victories, and her near misses as she learns to grow as both a woman and an immigrant in a world that often doesn’t appreciate either.

After stowing away as a boy to come to America around 1905, an Italian immigrant sculptor later stands firm in his love for an unfaithful woman. Trapped behind enemy lines during World War II, he and his family go on to save over 600 Allied troops. This is the epic multi-generational, true story of Salvatore Cartaino Scarpitta and family. His story was only partially told in a 1953 episode of This Is Your Life. Salvatore’s role in WWII is just one of the many stories found throughout this book.

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.

The Snakehead is a panoramic tale of international intrigue and a dramatic portrait of the underground economy in which America's 12 million illegal immigrants live. Based on hundreds of interviews, Patrick Radden Keefe's sweeping narrative tells the story not only of Sister Ping, but of the gangland gunslingers who worked for her, the immigration and law enforcement officials who pursued her, and the generation of penniless immigrants who risked death and braved a 17,000 mile odyssey so that they could realize their own version of the American dream.

Andreas Souvaliotis was raised at a time when being on the autism spectrum wasn't easily diagnosed or even discussed. Minds like his were simply considered odd. He also knew from an early age he was gay, and it terrified him as he was growing up with openly homophobic parents in one of Europe's least tolerant societies. Andreas' differences made him an outsider, right through to his mid-40s. And then suddenly, everything changed. Misfit is the extraordinary memoir of a man who realized there was strength in his strangeness, that it could be used as a force for good.

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.

Long before creating Covet by Christos, the world's leading livestreamer of all things luxury, future founder and CEO Christos Garkinos grew up in Detroit as the gay son of Greek immigrants and started working in his parents' diner at the age of four. Seeking a bigger life post-college, Garkinos took a job under Richard Branson in the mid-90's heyday of Virgin Megastores. Beginning to rub shoulders with A-list celebrities, he embarked on a 25-year fashion and media career with many highs and lows.

Colin Powell is the embodiment of the American dream. He was born in Harlem to immigrant parents from Jamaica. He knew the rough life of the streets. He overcame a barely average start at school. Then he joined the Army. The rest is history - including Vietnam, the Pentagon, Panama, and Desert Storm - but a history that until now has been known only on the surface.

Baby-faced teen Giovanni Macedo is desperate to find belonging in one of LA's most predatory gangs, the Columbia Lil Cycos—so desperate that he agrees to kill an undocumented Mexican street vendor. The vendor, Francisco Clemente, had been refusing to give in to the gang's shakedown demands. But Giovanni botches the hit, accidentally killing a newborn instead. The overlords who rule the Lil Cycos from a Supermax prison 1,000 miles away must be placated and Giovanni is lured across the border where, in turn, the gang botches his killing.

It’s easy to talk about freedom. But unless someone has lived in a world that suffocates freedom, it’s difficult to appreciate the liberty found in America. This is the true story of a Pakistani Muslim who immigrates to the United States for college and discovers five transformational freedoms along the way: the freedom to fail and start over, to love, to choose one’s faith, to be an entrepreneur, and to self-govern.

Since childhood Helene Stapinski heard lurid tales about her great-great-grandmother, Vita. In Southern Italy she was a loose woman who had murdered someone. Immigrating to America with three children, she lost one along the way. Helene's youthful obsession with Vita deepened as she grew up, eventually propelling the journalist to Italy, where, with her own children in tow, she pursued the story, determined to set the record straight.