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Annotated Bibliography –  
Immigrant and Refugee Experiences

Collected by Jad Rea

introduction 

The collection of books below shares a variety of 
perspectives on the immigrant and refugee experience. 
Some titles in the first section, For Adults, are 
written by refugees themselves, including Abdulrazak 
Gurnah’s Afterlife. This year, Gurnah became the first 
Black African author to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 
Literature in 35 years. Other titles provide an academic 
look at immigrant success and resilience, like Library 
Journal’s Best Social Science Book of the Year, After the 
Last Border by Jessica Goudeau. In the second section, 
For Young Adults & Kids, books are accessible to a 
younger audience: like multi-award-winning Dreamers, 
a picture book by Yuyi Morales. Taking an intersectional 
look at immigration, we see the collision of identity and 
family; of gender, sexuality, and social expectation; of 
community and isolation. 
 

for adults 

Abramitzky, R., & Boustan, L. (2022). Streets of 

gold: America’s untold story of immigrant success. 
PublicAffairs. 

In their study of immigration, Abramitzky and Boustan 
provide a new take on the role of immigration in 
American society and political policy. They argue that 
Americans base present social opinion and policy largely 
on myths and misunderstandings. Abramitzky and 
Boustan claim this study serves as a truthful, fact-based 
look at the often-divisive topic of immigration. With 
data gathered through ten years of research, the scholars 
support their assertion of the positive and vital role 

played by immigrants in America’s social and economic 
wellbeing. 
 
Agustin, R. (2022). Illegally yours: A memoir. Grand 
Central Publishing.

Agustin uses equal parts humor and candor to share his 
story of coming to terms with his status as an immigrant. 
The memoir explores themes of identity, family, and 
the social repercussions that come from being the 
child of immigrants. His narrative comes as an answer 
to the ongoing and often combative discourse over 
immigration in America. In an issue characterized by 
generalizations and political policies, Agustin reminds 
the reader of the individual people stuck in the middle of 
the debate.  
 
Banerjee, P. (2022). The opportunity trap: High-
skilled workers, Indian families, and the failures of the 
dependent visa program. NYU Press. 

Banerjee investigates the H-4 dependent visa programs 
and their effect on Indian immigrant families. She 
finds, despite the official language of the programs, 
immigrants face social and economic struggles. Banerjee 
argues the restrictive policies cause these families to rely 
on a single income, which is often not enough to sustain 
them. To support her assertions, Banerjee shares the 
findings of interviews with Indian immigrant couples. 
Her groundbreaking look at visa policy reveals the 
inadequacy of the present system. 
 
 



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Cohen, S. J., & Taylor, S. T. (2021). Journeys from 
there to here: Stories of immigrant trials, triumphs, and 
contributions. River Grove Books. 

The immigration debate often focuses on narratives of 
despair and struggle; Cohen’s work adds dimensions of 
success and resilience. Drawing from her work as an 
immigration lawyer, Cohen shares stories of her clients 
in their own words. Firsthand accounts of courtroom 
proceedings allow a rare look inside the immigration 
process in America. Cohen and her clients encourage 
readers to reflect on themes identity, community, and 
belonging. 
 
Creef, E. T. (2022). Shadow traces: Seeing Japanese/
American and Ainu women in photographic archives. 
University of Illinois Press. 

Creef explores the history of immigration through 
photographs. In her study of identity and visibility, 
she uses images as an intimate look into the Japanese 
and Japanese American women who immigrated to 
America. Creef applies a feminist lens to the study of 
immigration; she poses that we should take a more 
intersectional look at archival collections and investigate 
their potential for providing insights into race, class, and 
gender. She also provides suggestions on the integration 
of photographs and similar visual mediums into 
curriculum and research to offer a broader look at often 
overlooked communities.

 
Drake, S. J. (2022). Academic apartheid: Race and 
the criminalization of failure in an American suburb. 
University of California Press. 

Drake looks at racial segregation in education in a 
present context, examining the complex political and 
social factors that perpetuate the policy despite the 
Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board (1954) ruling making 
school segregation illegal. He compares ethnographic 
studies of two California high schools to lay out what 
systems of discrimination endure. Bringing together 
studies of immigration, race, ethnicity, and class, Drake 
also examines the role of criminalization and over-

policing of Black, Latinx, and low-income youths. 
To counter the systemic discrimination, Drake shares 
examples of community resilience and cooperation to 
fight for equality and success. 
 
Eng, A. (2022). Our laundry, our town: My Chinese 
American life from Flushing to the downtown stage and 
beyond. Fordham University Press. 

Eng uses his experience as a playwright and performer 
to reflect on his childhood as a Chinese American 
kid in a changing New York City neighborhood. He 
mixes literary analysis and anecdote to compare media 
portrayal—often few and far between—of Chinese and 
Chinese American characters and culture on stage and 
screen with the reality of his own childhood. His journey 
to discover himself begins in the Manhattan theater 
scene and takes Eng across the world to Hong Kong and 
Guangzhou, China. His memoir sits at the intersection 
of race and ethnicity, immigration, and identity.

 
Goudeau, J. (2021). After the last border: Two families 
and the story of refuge in America. Penguin Random 
House. 

Goudeau examines the intersection of gender and 
immigration in her study of two refugee families and 
their journey to find a new home in America. The 
stories of Mu Naw of Myanmar and Hasna of Syria 
allow an intimate look into the cruelty and impossible 
circumstances faced by families across the world. 
Goudeau’s narrative offers a holistic look at America’s 
refugee policies, charting the history from the Second 
World War to present day and explaining the changing 
social values that shape Americans’ view on immigrants 
and refugees.  
 
Gowayed, H. (2022). Refuge: How the state shapes 
human potential. Princeton University Press. 

Gowayed puts a human face to the United States, 
Canada, and Germany’s policy response to Syrian 
refugees. She argues these policies dehumanize refugees 
despite performative emphasis on individuality. 



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Gowayed puts special scrutiny on the United States 
resettlement policies, which seem to set immigrants and 
refugees up for failure as they are often put directly into 
impoverished and difficult circumstances. Setting her 
study against a backdrop of shared human experience of 
identity and belonging, Gowayed emphasizes the human 
cost of these policies on families and individuals.

 
Gurnah, A. (2020). Afterlives. Bloomsbury Publishing. 

Gurnah became the first Black African author to win the 
Nobel Peace Prize in Literature in 35 years after he was 
nominated for his career-long, unflinching depiction of 
immigration and culture in East Africa. Afterlives is his 
most recent novel, a story set in the German colonization 
of the region. The individual stories of his characters 
weave into the greater narrative of brutality and injustice 
faced by residents beneath the oppressive regime of 
colonialism. Gurnah mixes history and fiction to tell the 
story of imperialism and resilience in East Africa. 
 
Hartman, S. (2022). City of refugees: The story of three 
newcomers who breathed life into a dying American 
town. Beacon Press.

In America’s Rust Belt, with towns left desolate 
as manufacturers closed factories and hundreds 
of livelihoods were lost overnight, the thought of 
immigrants can conjure fears of outsiders taking jobs. In 
her study, Hartman explores the stark difference between 
this perception and reality. She shows how the arrival of 
immigrant families to an upstate New York town did not 
destroy the community; instead, the newcomers helped 
the struggling city find a second wind to start to recover 
from economic devastation.

 
Johnson, M. T. (2022). The middle kingdom under the 
big sky: A history of the Chinese experience in Montana. 
University of Nebraska Press. 

The popular image of “the Wild West” often neglect 
the vital role of immigrants in building and shaping the 
region; Johnson explores this phenomenon through the 
large Chinese population in early Montana. He examines 

the role of myth and sensationalism in our present view 
of history. A key element of his book is the emphasis 
of documents and family papers, allowing Chinese 
pioneers to tell their own stories. Johnson’s important 
study stands at the intersection of race and ethnicity, 
immigration, and agency in the American “Wild West.”

 
Molina, N. (2022). A place at the Nayarit: How a 
Mexican restaurant nourished a community. University 
of California Press. 

Molina examines the role of the restaurant as an 
important social gathering place in Los Angeles’ 
Mexican and Mexican American communities. The 
Nayarit, created by Molina’s grandmother in 1951, 
served as a place for connection: connection with 
community, food, and Mexico. With her intimate 
connection to the subject matter, Molina weaves a story 
of family and cooperation across both the good and bad. 
She relates the narrative to a wider exploration of the 
factors and relationships that shape our identity, from 
both inside and outside our own communities.

 
Ocampo, A. C. (2022). Brown and gay in LA: The lives 
of immigrant sons. NYU Press. 

In this intimate look at the intersection of race and 
ethnicity, gender, and sexuality, Ocampo investigates 
the complicated definition of identity in Los Angeles. 
Ocampo himself grew up a queer Filipino American 
in a community largely defined by rigid structures of 
masculinity and gender roles. He speaks of the delicate 
balance walked by gay children of immigrants like 
himself as they traverse their own communities and 
white spaces. Life is further complicated by social 
stigma and the weight of expectations as a member of 
multiple “othered” groups.

 
Reang, P. (2022). Ma and me: A memoir. MCD.

In this poetic memoir, Reang weaves a story of love, 
identity, and family. Her trials range from her family’s 
escape from Cambodia to her childhood struggles to 
live up to her mother’s expectations. Ma’s dismissal 



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of Reang’s sexuality further strains their relationship. 
In heartfelt and bittersweet prose, Reang reflects on 
generational trauma and the intersection of individuality 
and duty to family.

 
Su, P. H. (2022). The border within: Vietnamese 
migrants transforming ethnic nationalism in Berlin. 
Stanford University Press. 

Su investigates a community often overlooked in the 
study of the Cold War: communities of Vietnamese 
immigrants who settled on both sides of the Berlin 
Wall. She describes the political turmoil immigrants left 
behind in Vietnam, and the physical border between East 
and West Berlin that met them in Germany. Though seen 
as a single homogenous group by contemporary sources, 
Su argues the newcomers created social divisions within 
their own communities. She examines the social role 
of borders and unity, and the malleable concepts of 
ethnicity and identity.

 
Touloui-Semnani, N. (2022). They said they wanted 
revolution: A memoir of my parents. Little a.

Touloui-Semnani weaves personal life and politics as 
she tells the story of her family’s action in Iran. When 
her parents took part in the Iranian Revolution of 1979, 
she was just a child; fleeing with her mother to America, 
Touloui-Semnani grew up grappling with the fallout 
of revolution. Consulting primary sources and family 
memory, she comes to terms with her identity as a child 
of refugees and revolutionaries, and the personal cost of 
political change.

 

for young adults & kids 

Adewumi, T. (2020). Tani’s new home: A refugee finds 
hope & kindness in America. Thomas Nelson.

Tani Adewumi’s family had a life, a home, and a 
successful printing press in Nigeria—until, suddenly, 
they didn’t. When Boko Haram took power in Nigeria, 
Tani and his family were forced to flee the country. They 
arrived in New York City, homeless and seeking asylum. 

Young Tani found hope in an unlikely place: chess. In 
just a few months, he went from practicing chess in a 
homeless shelter to winning the New York State Chess 
Championship. In this touching memoir, Tani reminds 
us we can find hope and community even in the most 
difficult circumstances. 
 
Bui, T. (2017). The best we could do: An illustrated 
memoir. Abrams ComicArts.

Bui’s memoir of love and sacrifice spans generations. 
She tells the story of her family’s struggle to escape from 
South Vietnam in the 1970s, illustrating their difficult 
journey in this heart-wrenching graphic novel. Bui 
explores the way that times of struggle and uncertainty 
can blur identity and familial roles in ways that can 
go unnoticed and misunderstood for years. In a time 
of travel bans and an increasingly hostile environment 
toward immigrants, Bui’s experience is timelier than 
ever.

 
Morales, Y. (2018). Dreamers. Neal Porter Books.

In this heartfelt picture book, Morales writes and 
illustrates her own story of coming to America with 
her infant son. She tells a powerful story of hope and 
strength in the face of uncertainty. Readers of all ages 
can connect to the story of mother and son dreaming of 
a better life, remaining resilient in the face of soaring 
boundaries, and finding strength in each other.

 
Takei, G. (2019). They called us enemy. Top Shelf 
Productions.

In a frenzy of xenophobia and paranoia in the midst of 
World War II, Americans targeted Japanese Americans. 
By order of President Roosevelt, authorities rounded 
up Japanese Americans along the west coast—whether 
children of immigrants or immigrants themselves—and 
interned them in so-called "relocation centers.” Takei 
shares his family’s experience in these internment camps 
through the eyes of a child; he was just five years old at 
the time of his family’s forced relocation. In this chilling 

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and timely graphic novel, Takei urges us to remember 
and reckon with this shameful chapter of America’s 
history.

 
Vega, S. R. (2023). Drawing deportation: Art and 
resistance among immigrant children. NYU Press. 

In this unique insight into the circumstances of 
immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, Vega gathers 
interviews with families and the artwork of immigrant 
children. The unfiltered reality offered by the images 
puts a personal face to a policy issue, reminding readers 
of the human cost of the immigration debate. Narratives 
often dehumanize immigrants and remove their 
agency; Vega argues this treatment applies doubly so to 
children. By elevating their stories and listening to their 
hopes for the future, Vega offers a study of our current 
circumstances through the eyes of the children living it, 
and suggestions for how we might move forward.

 
Yang, K. K. (2020). The most beautiful thing. 
Carolrhoda Books.

In this picture book, suitable for K-3rd grade readers, 
Yang uses her childhood experience as a Hmong refugee 
to tell a story of beauty and identity. Young Kalia’s 
family is full of love but faces financial difficulties as 
they adjust to their new Minnesota home. Kalia struggles 
with wanting more and turns to her grandmother for 
help. Speaking across generations and across the world, 
from Laos to Minnesota, her grandmother tells Kalia 
the most beautiful thing is found within ourselves and 
within those we love.




