Coming to America - The Immigrant Experience
Crescent by Diana Abu-Jaber
Never married, living with an Iraqi-immigrant uncle and devoted dog and working as a chef in a Lebanese restaurant, 39-year-old Sirine finds her life turned upside down by a handsome Arabic literature professor.
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez
It's a long way from Santo Domingo to the Bronx, but if anyone can go the distance, it's the Garcia girls. Four lively Latinas plunged from a pampered life of privilege on an island compound into the big-city chaos of New York, they rebel against Mami and Papi's old-world discipline and embrace all that America has to offer.
The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle
The lives of two different couples – wealthy Los Angeles liberals Delaney and Kyra Mossbacher and Candido and America Rincon, a pair of Mexican illegals – suddenly collide, in a story that unfolds from the shifting viewpoints of the various characters.
Dancing on Sunday Afternoons by Linda Cardillo
Through reminiscences, photographs and letters, Giulia shares the experiences that forever changed her life with her granddaughter Cara, reliving her immigrant experience to America where she met Paolo, her first husband, who was the great love of her life.
The Saint of Lost Things by Christopher Castellani
In a 1953 Italian neighborhood in Delaware, Maddalena Grasso, her husband Antonio and Guilio Fabbri live in the shadows of St. Anthony's Church, where their prayers are heard and fate and circumstances intervene to answer them in unforeseeable ways.
Let It Rain Coffee by Angie Cruz
Leaving her home in the Dominican Republic to pursue an American lifestyle, Esperanza struggles with the realities of everyday hardships in a cramped apartment where she lives with her husband, children and critical father-in-law.
The Village Bride of Beverly Hills by Kavita Daswani
After an arranged marriage in India, Priya and her husband move to California, where they live with his parents and she is expected to play the traditional role, but her growing love for her new husband is threatened by his disapproving family.
Sister of My Heart by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Two girls, one the daughter of an upper-caste Calcutta family, the other the daughter of the black sheep of that same family, form a sisterly bond that shatters when one of the girls discovers a dark family secret.
The House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus
Three fragile yet determined people are drawn by their competing desires to the same small house in the California hills and become dangerously entangled in a relentlessly escalating crisis.
Towelhead by Alicia Erian
Sent to live with her strict Lebanese father in Texas upon the outbreak of the Gulf War, Arab-American teen Jasira endures racial taunts from her new classmates and enters into a dangerously exploitative relationship with a bigoted Army reservist.
The Love Wife by Jen Gish
The arrival of a "cousin" from mainland China, arranged by Mama Wong to serve as a nanny, throws the household of Carnegie Wong, a second-generation Chinese-American, his WASP wife Blondie and their three children into turmoil.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
A young Muslim-American, Changez is living the American dream, with a Princeton education and high-paying job, until the events of September 11th force him to confront his personal allegiances.
You Have to Be Careful in the Land of the Free by James Kelman
In a funny, finely crafted novel, a restless Scottish man who has found nothing but heartache in the U.S. finds himself troubled over a pending trip home to Scotland – his first in seven years – that may or may not make matters worse for him.
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
A portrait of the immigrant experience follows the Ganguli family from their traditional life in India through their arrival in Massachusetts in the late 1960s and their difficult melding into an American way of life.
China Boy by Gus Lee
In the 1950s, Kai Ting and his family come to San Francisco, but his mother dies shortly thereafter, and his new stepmother wants to erase everything Chinese from his life.
The Rug Merchant by Meg Mullins
Serving wealthy clients in New York's Upper East Side, Iranian Ushman Khan is shattered when his wife back home leaves him for another man, an event after which he embarks on a romance with a Barnard college student.
Accordion Crimes by Annie Proulx
Nine connected stories follow an accordion and its various doomed owners from 1890 Sicily through New Orleans to an immigrant community in South Dakota.
Terrorist by John Updike
Eighteen-year-old Ahmad, the son of an Irish-American mother and long-gone Egyptian father, contemptuous of the self-indulgent society surrounding him and devoted to the teachings of Islam, becomes drawn into an insidious terrorist plot.