Helen Plum Library

"A newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, guided by the voices of artists, poets, and kings, embarks on a search that leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum"--

"Nineteen eighties Detroit was a volatile place to live, but above the fray stood a safe haven: Chung's Cantonese Cuisine, where anyone--from the city's first Black mayor to the local drag queens, from a big-time Hollywood star to elderly Jewish couples--could sit down for a warm, home-cooked meal. Here was where, beneath a bright-red awning and surrounded by his multigenerational family, filmmaker and activist Curtis Chin came of age; where he learned...

"Eighteen-year-old Shelley, born into a much-despised branch of the Zheng family in Yunnan Province and living in the shadow of his widowed father's grief, dreams of bigger things. Buoyed by an exuberant heart and his cousin Deng's tall tales about the United States, Shelley heads to San Francisco to claim his destiny, confident that any hurdles will be easily overcome by the awesome powers of the "Chinese groove," a belief in the unspoken bonds between...

"Brando Skyhorse, winner of the PEN Hemingway Award, returns with his highly anticipated second novel, a literary dystopian tale set in a near-future America where mandatory identification wristbands make second-generation immigrants into second-class citizens"-- Iris Prince is starting over. After years of drifting apart, she and her husband are going through a surprisingly drama-free divorce. She's moved to a new house in a new neighborhood, and...

"A story of perseverance and the power of convictions from the groundbreaking immigrant scientist whose decades-long research led to the COVID-19 vaccines. Katalin Karikó had an unlikely journey. The daughter of a butcher in postwar communist Hungary, Karikó grew up in a one-room home that lacked running water, and her family grew their own vegetables. She saw the wonders of nature all around her and was determined to become a scientist. That determination...

"Recounting her mother's migration from India and how she came to speak two languages--Malayalam and English--a young girl shows how the gift of multilingualism can transport people across borders and around the world"--Provided by publisher

"A new book by the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer about the twenty-first-century Latino experience and identity"-- "Latino" is the most open-ended and loosely defined of the major race categories in the United States. Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of "Latino" assembles the Pulitzer Prize winner Héctor Tobar's personal experiences as the son of Guatemalan immigrants and the stories told to him by his Latinx students...

"Leal came to the U.S. penniless as a teenager, speaking almost no English; he literally slept in the boiler room of a Wisconsin cheese factory for months before he was caught. Through hard work, grit, and ingenuity Leal would go on to launch his own business. He is widely credited with introducing Mexican cheeses to the U.S. market, and grew his company to a multi-million-dollar success story. Yet, like many successful entrepreneurs, Leal's great...

A novel in verse inspired by the author's experience follows Hà and her family, refugees from the Vietnam War, as they move to Texas for a new job, and despite not wanting to start over again, Hà discovers unwanted change can bring a good opportunity

"An epic, heartbreaking, and deeply reported history of the disastrous humanitarian crisis at the southern border that tells the story of the migrants forced to risk everything and the policy makers determining their fate"--