The Immigrant Experience: Selected Fiction

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The Immigrant Experience:

Selected Fiction

Fiction is arranged alphabetically by the last name of the author.
Please consult the online catalog or check with a librarian to verify location and availability.

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez: Forced to flee their native Caribbean island after an attempted coup, the Garcias – Carlos, Laura, and their four daughters – must learn a new way of life in the Bronx, while trying to cling to the old ways that they loved.
Hedwig and Berti by Frieda Arkin: Forced to leave their homeland during the rise of the Nazis, German Jews Hedwig Kessler, her husband Berti, and their piano prodigy daughter, Gerda, confront the trials and tribulations of becoming immigrants.
Let it Rain Coffee by Angie Cruz: Leaving her home in the Dominican Republic to pursue a life in America, Esperanza struggles with the realities of everyday hardships in a cramped apartment where she lives with her husband, children, and critical father-in-law.
Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat: At the age of twelve, Sophie Caco is sent from the impoverished village of Croix-des-Rosets to be reunited with her mother, where she gains a legacy of shame that can only be healed when she returns to Haiti, to the woman who first raised her.
Cloud Chamber by Michael Dorris: From late 1800s to present day America, the diverse members of a family speak out in their own voices about their emotions, passions, determination, memories, and the persistence of the love that binds them together.
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus: When a former colonel of the Iranian Air Force and his family purchase a small California home at auction, they are faced with a great conflict as the former owner and her police officer boyfriend fight to get it back at any cost.
Metropolis by Elizabeth Gaffney: Following a fire in a circus stable, a young German immigrant becomes caught up in the New York criminal underworld while falling in love with an Irish girl.
Typical American by Gish Jen: A novel portraying the Chinese immigrant experiencefollows the fortunes of the Chang family as they adjust to the freedom of America and become caught up in suburban life, greed, and the American dream.
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.
Vita by Melania Mazzucco: After arriving at Ellis Island, two poor children from Southern Italy struggle to survive amid the poverty, opportunity, and crime of Little Italy in New York City.
Desirable Daughters by Bharati Mukherjee: Chronicles the journey of three Brahmin women as the follow divergent paths from their home in Calcutta and a rigid Indian society to seek new lives for themselves on two separate continents.
Sex Wars by Marge Piercy: Coming of age in a post-Civil War New York City tenement flat, Jewish-Russian Freydeh juggles multiple jobs to earn passage for her family, until she learns that her younger sister is adrift somewhere in the city.
The Big Blowdown by George Pelecanos: Growing up together in Washington, D.C., during the 1940s, young immigrants and friends Joey Recevo and Pete Karras find themselves on opposite sides when the mob decides that the grill in which Pete is working needs protection.
The Fortunate Pilgrim by Mario Puzo: Follows one family of Italian immigrants who settle in New York in the late 1920s through World War II, a family dominated by a defiant matriarch who struggles to raise six children and preserve old world values in a new land.
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan: Encompassing two generations and a rich blend of Chinese and American history, this story of four struggling, strong women also reveals the memories and feelings of their daughters.

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