Books for Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month

By Coll Rowe | April 30 2021 | English Language ArtsSocial Studies

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage month, and we are sharing books from AAPI creators to be read and celebrated by students all year long.

 

My Year Abroad

My Year Abroad is an entertaining story of a young American whose life is transformed when a Chinese-American businessman suddenly takes him under his wing on a global adventure.

 

Finding My Voice

This is a groundbreaking classic from Korean-American author Marie Myung-Ok Lee, reissued with a new foreword from Kat Cho. It tells the story of seventeen-year-old Ellen Sung just wants to be like everyone else at her all-white school. When she stands up to racism at school and disapproval at home, Ellen discovers that her greatest challenge is finding the courage to speak up and raise her voice.

 

Minor Feelings        

Poet and essayist Cathy Park Hong fearlessly and provocatively blends memoir, cultural criticism, and history to expose fresh truths about racialized consciousness in America. A radically honest work of art, Minor Feelings forms a portrait of one Asian American psyche—and of a writer’s search to both uncover and speak the truth.

 

Interior Chinatown

Charles Yu’s National Book Award winning novel Interior Chinatown is infinitely inventive and deeply personal, exploring the themes of pop culture, assimilation, and immigration. It tells the story of Willis Wu who doesn’t perceive himself as the protagonist in his own life. After stumbling into the spotlight, he finds himself launched into a wider world than he’s ever known, discovering not only the secret history of Chinatown, but the buried legacy of his own family.

 

Last Night at the Telegraph

Here is a gripping story of love and duty set in San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1954, which is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love. Red-Scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily Hu, who is in love with Kathleen Miller. With deportation looming over her father—despite his hard-won citizenship—Lily risks everything to let their love see the light of day.

 

Vietnamerica

Here is a superb graphic memoir in which inspired artist and storyteller GB Tran reveals the road that brought his family to where they are today: Vietnamerica. In telling his family’s story, GB finds his own place in this saga of hardship and heroism. Vietnamerica is a visually stunning portrait of survival, escape, and reinvention—and of the gift of the American immigrants’ dream, passed on to their children.

 

America Betiya

Here is a luminous story of a young artist grappling with first love, family boundaries and the complications of a cross-cultural relationship. Braiding together themes of sexuality, artistic expression, and appropriation, she gives voice to a girl claiming ownership of her identity, one shattered stereotype at a time.

 

Discover more titles

High School titles

Middle School titles

 

Visit our course catalog for books in the following categories:

Asian American Literature, History of Asian Americans, People and Cultures in the United States – Asian American

An Asian American Reckoning
9781984820389
Poet and essayist Cathy Park Hong fearlessly and provocatively blends memoir, cultural criticism, and history to expose fresh truths about racialized consciousness in America. Part memoir and part cultural criticism, this collection is vulnerable, humorous, and provocative—and its relentless and riveting pursuit of vital questions around family and friendship, art and politics, identity and individuality, will change the way you think about our world.
$18.00 US
Mar 02, 2021
Paperback
224 Pages
One World

A Novel (National Book Award Winner)
9780307948472
Winner of the National Book Award
$17.00 US
Nov 17, 2020
Paperback
288 Pages
Vintage

9780525555254
Winner of the National Book Award Acclaimed author of Ash Malinda Lo returns with her most ambitious novel yet, a gripping story of love and duty set in San Francisco's Chinatown during the 1950s.
$18.99 US
Jan 19, 2021
Hardcover
416 Pages
Dutton Books for Young Readers

A Family's Journey
9780345508720
A TIME Magazine Top Ten Graphic Memoir of All Time
$32.00 US
Jan 25, 2011
Hardcover
288 Pages
Villard

9781984897152
A luminous story of a young artist grappling with first love, family boundaries and the complications of a cross-cultural relationship. Perfect for fans of Sandhya Menon, Erika Sanchez and Jandy Nelson.
$17.99 US
Mar 09, 2021
Hardcover
368 Pages
Knopf Books for Young Readers