"Grapes of Wrath" Companion books and more!
Fiction
- Boyle, T. Coraghessan.
"Tortilla Curtain."
Viking, 1995.
Contrasts two starkly different Los Angeles couples in opposition -- a young Mexican immigrant couple with a baby on the way, and an affluent nature writer whose wife sells real estate with a heavy hand on ironic parallels. - Cao, Lan.
"Monkey Bridge."
Penguin USA, 1998.
A young Vietnamese woman comes of age in America after leaving Saigon in 1975, while her mother confronts a painful struggle with loss, separation and exile and a difficult adjustment to life in the family's new country. - Lee, Chang-Rae.
"Native Speaker."
Riverhead, 1995.
Henry Park, a Korean-American private spy, is challenged by a new assignment to investigate a rising Korean-American politician, but the secrets he uncovers threaten his cultural identity and his relationship with his wife. - Lee, Don.
"Yellow: Stories."
W.W. Norton, 2001.
A collection of stories set in the fictional town of Rosarita Bay, California, examines what it means to be Asian in America. The stories feature such characters as Annie Yun, whose passion for country music has her longing for a cowboy, ex-fisherman Alan Fujitani, stuck in romantic widowerhood, and the competitive "Oriental Hair Poets," whose handcrafted chairs are museum pieces. - McCunn, Ruthanne Lum.
"Thousand Pieces of Gold: A Biographical Novel."
Beacon Press, 1988 (c.1981).
Chronicles the life of Lalu Nathoy, a young Chinese girl--sold as a slave and brought to America, where later as Polly Bemis she struggles and survives as a pioneer in the West. - Poey, Delia and Virgil Suarez, eds.
"Iguana Dreams."
HarperPerennial, 1992.
Richly varied anthology that brings together 29 short stories reflecting different aspects of Latino life. - Roley, Brian Ascalon.
"American Son."
W.W. Norton, 2001.
Conflict, alienation and poverty threaten to destroy the already disintegrating relationship between two Filipino brothers -- Tomas and Gabe -- as their mother, divorced from their American father, struggles to raise her two sons in an ethnically diverse California while working two dead-end jobs. - Yamanaka, Lois Ann.
"Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers."
Harvest/Harcourt Brace, 1997.
Nariyoshi, a young girl growing up in Hilo, Hawaii, faces a world that is divided between East and West.
Compiled by Laura Lent, San Francisco Public Library, with help from Felicia Harmer Kelley, California Council for the Humanities, Susan Goldstein, San Francisco Public Library, and Jeannine Cuevas, Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize.