13 Memoirs by U.S. Immigrants from Across the Globe

Coming to America...

Established in 1987, National Immigrants Day celebrates the determination, ingenuity, and spirit that immigrants contribute to the mélange of cultures we call America. We are excited to mark this holiday by featuring poignant and thought-provoking memoirs by immigrants hailing from around the world. As these stories reflect, migrating to a new country presents a host of challenges and loss amidst the hopes for better opportunities and safer living conditions.

...From Cuba and Colombia

A Cup Of Water Under My Bed
In this coming-of-age memoir, Daisy Hernández chronicles the lessons she learned from her Cuban-Colombian family, alongside her own quest to find herself and her community while establishing a new life. Moving between English and Spanish, she reflects on the impact of her parents and many of her fears growing up, resulting in a must-read, heartfelt exploration.

...From Dominican Republic

Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina
Born in the U.S. to Dominican parents, Raquel Cepeda was sent as a baby to live with her maternal grandparents in Santo Domingo. When she comes back to the U.S. years later, her family has changed. With a vibrant lyrical prose and fierce honesty, Cepeda parses concepts of race, identity, and ancestral DNA among Latinos by sharing her own Dominican-American story.

...From Germany

Belonging
Born three decades after the end of the Holocaust, award-winning Nora Krug left Germany shortly after college and settled in New York City. Living abroad, she longed for the familiar comforts of her youth, while recognizing that she often felt ashamed to be German. Her graphic memoir reimagines a family scrapbook, revealing that, with the benefit of distance, we can see the truth.

...From Haiti

Brother, I'm Dying
Award-winning writer Edwidge Danticat came to think of her Uncle Joseph as her "second father," when, at the age of four, she went to live with him in Haiti while her parents left to build a better life for their family in the U.S. Later in Brooklyn, she feared for the safety of her beloved uncle, as the political situation in Haiti fell apart. This epic tale recounts her family's history with precision and candor.

...From India

Here We Are: American Dreams, American Nightmares
NPR correspondent Aarti Shahani grapples with the question: "Who really belongs in America?" Refugees from India, the journalist's parents settled in Queens, where they forged a rocky road toward stability, acceptance, and financial security. Weaving her own personal journey with the stories of her family, Shahani reveals just how tenuous the immigrant's place in American society truly is.

...From Iran

The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You
At age eight, Dina Nayeri fled Iran with her mother and brother and was eventually granted asylum in America. In this singular memoir, Nayeri weaves together her own story with those of other refugees, bringing us inside their uniquely extraordinary journeys. Addressing provocative questions, this book challenges readers to rethink their attitudes on the refugee crisis.

...From Mexico

The Distance Between Us
Author Reyna Grande chronicles a tumultuous childhood spent torn between two countries. As her parents made a risky trek across the Mexican border, they left her and her siblings with their grandmother, to return for them later. Grande's account humorously captures the confusion and contradictions of childhood and the way that our joys and sorrows remain forever imprinted in our hearts.

...From Rwanda

The Girl Who Smiled Beads
Fleeing the Rwandan genocide, six-year-old Clemantine Wamariya and her older sister, Claire, spent six years in seven different African countries, fighting for survival in one refugee camp after another. Granted asylum in the U.S., they immigrated to Chicago, where their paths diverged painfully. Incisive, lyrical, and provocative, this bracingly original story illuminates the immigrant experience.

...From Somalia

Call Me American
You may have heard Abdi Nor Iftin's story on This American Life. His obsession with American culture as a Somalian youth earned him the nickname "Abdi American." But when Islamic fundamentalists came to power, anyone associated with the U.S. was in danger. After landing a job working with NPR, threats against him turned deadly. After fleeing to Kenya, he won a coveted U.S. green-card lottery. But more challenges lay ahead.

...From Vietnam

The Best We Could Do
In this intimate graphic memoir, artist and author Thi Bui documents the story of her family's daring escape after the fall of South Vietnam in the 1970s, and the difficulties they faced building new lives for themselves in America. With haunting, poetic writing and breathtaking art, she examines the strength of family, the importance of identity, and the meaning of home.

And One More for Kids!

Dreamers
An award-winning children's book author and illustrator Yuyi Morales came to the U.S. in 1994, with not much more than her dreams and her infant son. This gorgeously illustrated picture book is an ode to everything that immigrants bring with them when they arrive to a new country—and what they add.

These volumes explore journeys—both harrowing and heartwarming—that many of us can't begin to imagine. For others, these stories may offer a way to gain a deeper understanding of what they or their forebears have experienced.

For a broader view of the immigrant experience, try The Good Immigrant: 26 Writers Reflect on America, edited by Nikesh Shukla and Chimene Suleyman, authors like Alexander Chee and Jenny Zhang share powerful personal stories of living between cultures and languages while struggling to figure out who they are and where they belong.

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Read more by Ashly Moore Sheldon