Category Archives: Hapa
Tall Story by Candy Gourlay
As we head into the holiday weekend, here’s a debut novel to help you celebrate … Tall Story is as multi-layered as its clever title, filled with adventure, magic realism, a dual family saga thousands of miles apart, not to mention one heck of a basketball game!
Andi and Bernardo are half-siblings who at first couldn’t be more unlike. Andi is tiny, “barely a teenager” at 13, lives in London with her Filipino mother and her British father, and dreams of playing point guard on her school basketball team. She’s met her older brother just once. Bernardo is 16, has lived his entire life in a small village in the Philippines where he was raised by an aunt and uncle. Mum Mary Ann, suddenly widowed with an infant, moved to London to take the one job that might help pay off the “gazillions” she owed in hospital bills. Her intention was to send for Bernardo as soon as she was settled, but life didn’t work out that way … while she waited 16 years for Bernardo’s immigration papers, she married Andi’s father and had Andi, but visited as often as she could.
Now Bernardo is finally reunited with his family in London. And Andi had no clue that her big brother would turn out to be 8 feet TALL. The medical term for his condition is Gigantism, but Bernardo has grown up with enchanted legends and frightening curses that explain his height otherwise … and he’s plagued by guilt for leaving his Filipino family and friends behind. The initial reunion isn’t exactly easy, and Andi can’t help but be disappointed that her Velcro-suited, socks-with-size-22-sandals-garbed big brother is so different from what she had expected, wished for, dreamed about …
Told in alternating chapters by both siblings, Tall Story is one of those heart-thumping, sigh-inducing tales that will infuse you with just the right glowing satisfaction as you turn that final page. From crumbling ceilings to magic stones to rabid dogs to sleeping giants to a surprising rogue teacher willing to break a few rules, Candy Gourlay has definitely concocted one remarkable tall story that just might make you believe in magic. Slam dunk ahead!
Readers: Middle Grade, Young Adult
Published: 2011 Continue reading
Filed under ..Middle Grade Readers, .Fiction, British, Filipino/a, Hapa
Orchards by Holly Thompson, illustrations by Grady McFerrin
Holly Thompson‘s novel-in-verse begins with a jarring slam: “One week after / you stuffed a coil of rope / into your backpack / and walked uphill into / Osgoods’ orchard / where blooms were still closed fists // my father looked up summer airfares to Tokyo.”
Kanako Goldberg’s eighth-grade classmate Ruth is dead from suicide. In spite of Kana’s protestations of “it wasn’t my fault / I didn’t do anything!” her parents decide to send her to Japan to “reflect / in the presence of your ancestors.” Although Kana wasn’t the one whose vicious note was found in Ruth’s pocket, Kana and her friends know they could have been kinder, gentler, more inclusive. Indeed, none of them did anything … when they could have, when they should have.
To give her distanced thinking space, Kana is sent to a Japanese seaside village to stay with her mother’s family, to experience her Japanese heritage, rediscover her extended relatives, and work on the family citrus farm where she learns to cultivate mikan, a uniquely Japanese fruit of the orange family. This orchard is where Kana’s mother grew up, before she married Kana’s Jewish American father, and moved thousands of miles away.
Far away from home, Kana is seemingly insulated from the tragedy, and yet aching thoughts of could-have-been, should-have-been relentlessly pervade Kana’s thoughts. Just as she is beginning to strengthen her fragile self, tragedy strikes again, and Kana must somehow find the strength to understand and survive.
Thompson’s sparse pages speak volumes, from Kana’s complicit guilt, to her forced-to-be-wise-attempts to understand (“as though / we’re dressed up / in oversized adult clothing”), to her astute, gorgeous response to help her friends and classmates to heal … and live. Thompson confronts every-parent’s-nightmare-come-true with breathtaking clarity; Orchards is both a wake-up call and a haunting elegy. It’s not easy to read, but it’s undoubtedly a must-read.
Readers: Middle Grade, Young Adult
Published: 2011 Continue reading
Filed under ..Middle Grade Readers, ..Young Adult Readers, .Fiction, .Poetry, Hapa, Japanese, Japanese American
Ladder to the Moon by Maya Soetoro-Ng, illustrated by Yuyi Morales
“More than anything, I wished that my mother and my daughter could have known and loved each other,” Maya Soetoro-Ng writes in her “Author’s Note,” mourning her late mother (anthropologist S. Ann Dunham), who died a decade before her granddaughter Suhaila was born. Through the infinite magic of words and the gorgeous imagination of Yuyi Morales‘ illustrations, Soetoro-Ng “unite[s] grandmother and grandchild through a story in which my mother could meet one of her granddaughters and share the moon with her.”
Inspired by Georgia O’Keefe’s painting of the same name, Ladder to the Moon is an exquisite, multi-generational journey of love and hope. “‘What was Grandma Annie like?’” Suhaila asks. “‘Full, soft, and curious. Your grandma would wrap her arms around the whole world if she could,” Mama assures her. Suhaila continues to wonder that night, and “as though in answer … a golden ladder appeared on the edge of the sill.” Grandma Annie emerges to take the curious Suhaila by the hand, and climb the beckoning ladder.
Nestled together into the moon, Suhaila and Grandma Annie share a smile until “they too knew each other completely. Sometimes a smile is strong enough to do that.” Suhaila watches as Annie guides the children lost in tragedies (a “fifty-foot wave” and “two tall towers that trembled”) to safety. Annie promises the children “‘We’ll work together,’” in order to “build bridges and buildings and bonds between people.”
Suhaila witnesses the power of prayer, the people below united in spite of all their different faiths into “hope’s massive stream.” The more she sees, the harder she listens, and the deeper she feels her grandmother’s love; with every new experience she shares with Annie, Suhaila “knew more than she had known before.” Soon enough, Suhaila herself learns how to heal.
Suhaila’s magical journey ends with a “snuggle and a smooch” before she tumbles back to bed, returning as a young harbinger of Grandma Annie’s healing wisdom. ”Come. Tell me everything,” Mama gently greets her traveling daughter. And thus the story can begin anew…
Soetoro-Ng and Morales offer a wondrous tale of how each of us – even the youngest children – can “plant seeds in soft soil,” both literally and figuratively, as we nourish and heal one other. Together, with renewed love and hope, the earth can become a safe harbor for us all.
Readers: Children
Published: 2011 Continue reading
Filed under ..Children/Picture Books, .Fiction, Hapa, Indonesian American
Dragon Chica by May-lee Chai
May-lee Chai‘s second novel is one of those titles to consider reading from the end, in this case with the “Acknowledgements,” where the Chinese Caucasian hapa Chai recounts her long personal involvement with the Cambodian American community.
At 15, writing for her Midwest hometown newspaper in the early 1980s, Chai began a story that she would not finish until decades later with Dragon Chica. When a Chinese Cambodian family opened a Chinese restaurant in Chai’s town, Chai went to interview the mother who had survived the Khmer Rouge killing fields, but had lost three of her children before she could escape. “However, her family received so many death threats that she moved the family away from our town before I could finish writing my article. My inability to tell her story has haunted me for years.”
Seemingly as a direct result, throughout Chai’s career as student activist, journalist, award-winning writer, she has vigilantly represented the Cambodian and Cambodian American experience. Over a quarter-of-a-century later, she crystallizes those experiences to create Dragon‘s coming-of-age protagonist Nea: “She cannot, of course, represent everyone, but she embodies the fighting spirit, the loyalty, the pain, and the promise of a new generation.”
Knowing this much adds a deeper sense of urgency to young Nea’s story. At 11, Nea lives a hardscrabble life in Texas with her overworked mother, three sisters, and a brother; they have somehow survived the Khmer Rouge killing fields in their native Cambodia, although they lost their father and so many others. The family is surprised with the miraculous news that they have relatives in Nebraska who invite them into the family business. Once wealthy back home, Nea’s aunt and uncle – unrecognizably aged beyond their years – now run a Chinese restaurant, ironically named “The Silver Palace.”
The reunited family settles into a tenuous routine. Auntie is still reeling from the tortuous loss of her children. Uncle, who gambles away his pain, is desperately trying to keep the family together. Nea, her mother, and her siblings must again adjust to a new town hardly welcoming of strange faces. As secrets whispered and hushed continue to loom, the family’s shared past is not enough to keep them together.
That Chai has lived many of Nea’s experiences (she captures her own difficult Midwest coming-of age in her 2007 memoir Hapa Girl) is evident in her vivid writing. She certainly feels Nea’s anxiety, the desperation of hoping to fit it, the scars of the hateful racism. Where Chai falters briefly is when she seems to rush toward resolutions, most notably in the last few pages when larger-than-life emotions flip-flop too quickly from cemented unforgiveness to sudden understanding. While the overall story clearly belongs to Nea, it’s nevertheless a bit skimpy with Nea’s younger siblings, although her younger brother finally gets a few welcome chapters near book’s end.
That the novel is a timely addition to the too-few available Cambodian American titles is more important than a few quibbles. Told with unflinching clarity and unapologetic determination, Nea’s story is to be mourned, remembered, and ultimately lauded, not only as it bears witness to Cambodian American immigration, but as a commemoration of hard-won American rebirth.
Readers: Adult
Published: 2010 Continue reading
Filed under ..Adult Readers, .Fiction, Cambodian American, Chinese American, Hapa
Cinnamon Baby by Nicola Winstanley, illustrated by Janice Nadeau
Miriam is a magical baker who makes her cinnamon bread last because it’s her favorite. When Sebastian bicycles by her Alchemy Bakery with his violin, he’s drawn in by her “sweet-smelling voice,” and after a year of buying a loaf every single day, asks Miriam to marry him. Of course she says yes!
Soon enough, the young couple have a little baby who is the perfect mixture of red-haired Miriam and brown-skinned Sebastian: “big brown eyes and dusky skin and smelled like sweet milk.” On the fourth day of being in the world, “the baby started to cry.” And no matter what sweet Miriam or doting Sebastian does, the baby’s tears only pause to sleep.
Days, doctors, much desperation later, Miriam figures out what will finally make the baby happy: dough … especially of the cinnamon variety. The threesome dash to the bakery, Miriam sets to work while Sebastian and the baby wait and watch, anticipating that delectable cinnamon loaf. Soon enough, their cinnamon baby settles into perfect contentment.
As adorable as the newborn tale is, the one small detail that made me pause was why the baby remained genderless at least in print, prompting debut author Nicola Winstanley to refer to the baby as “it,” even while veteran illustrator Janice Nadeau’s pretty-in-pink illustrations strongly suggest the baby is s girl. Perhaps this was a cultural choice – both author and illustrator are our far north neighbors – without any possible underlying judgment attached, but I found the choice somewhat disconcerting, perhaps oversensitive about referring to a mixed-race child as “it.”
Regardless, as the mother of a once-colicky hapa newborn, I immediately recognized and empathized with the befuddled new parents. Nadeau whimsically captures the baby’s mighty waterworks, showering her worried mother from the ever-mobile pink baby-buggy, her anxious father during an already wet bath, even baptizing the trying doctor in his examination room.
By story’s end, Mommy knows best (which I’m always trying to convince our too fast-growing, ever doubting kids) … at least for a few more years until baby’s tears evolve into teenage talkback! Oh, truly, the joys of parenthood are neverending!
Readers: Children
Published: 2011 Continue reading
Filed under ..Children/Picture Books, .Fiction, Canadian, Hapa
Nobody’s Son: Notes from an American Life by Luis Alberto Urrea
This third and final installment of Luis Alberto Urrea‘s Border Trilogy is unmistakably his most personal. His “good Republican” mother from Staten Island never accepted his Mexican identity. His “devil on the dance floor”-father was once on Mexico’s presidential staff, becoming a bowling alley janitor when he crossed the border; he was his son’s “hero and [his] greatest source of terror.”
His parents’ marriage eventually devolved into a “long chess game of hate,” with their only child stuck somewhere in between. He was not Mexican (“whatever Mexican is”) with his blond hair and blue eyes inherited from his immigrant father: “our Aryan looks are attributed to the Visigoths, when they entered Spain and generously dispersed gallons of genetic material in every burning village.” And in spite of his U.S. citizenship, with a name like Luis Alberto Urrea, he certainly could not be considered American.
As he examines the many permutations of his global heritage – Native American, various types of European, even Chinese – Urrea draws parallels to the amalgam that is the English language. Every chance he gets, he points out (with etymological roots glibly noted in parentheses) that the “official language of the United States” is hardly untainted: “Thank God so many people lent us [their words] or we’d be forced to point and grunt.”
With his blended background and his borrowed, adapted, stolen language, “America is home. It’s the only home I have. Both Americas. All three Americas, from the Arctic circle to Tierra del Fuego.” Borders criss-cross his experience, yet Urrea remains fluid, refusing to succumb to “a nightmare of silence.” He shares his love of words openly, freely, hopefully and reveals glimpses of his family’s Tijuana tales, his southern California childhood trapped between his warring parents, and the temporary sanctuary he found in the home of an older couple who loved him most tenderly. He adds memories of whores and nuns, of a red Cadillac with literary history, and a Jeep with too many miles left to go.
“I’m not old enough to write my memoir,” Urrea insists. Instead, “I’ve offered here a few words about my part of the journey.” Still very much in his youth, he confesses, “I don’t know where I’m going.” No matter … empowered by his stories – soothing and disturbing, damning and enlightening – we readers are sure to follow along for the memorable literary ride.
Readers: Adult
Published: 1998 Continue reading
Filed under ..Adult Readers, .Memoir, .Nonfiction, Hapa, Latino/a
By the Lake of Sleeping Children: The Secret Life of the Mexican Border by Luis Alberto Urrea, photographs by John Lueders-Booth
Once I opened this second volume in Luis Alberto Urrea‘s Border Trilogy, I simply couldn’t stop. So here’s the best thing I can say about Lake after reading his first border title, Across the Wire: Lake is more of the same … it’s another riveting must-read.
Urrea begins his “Introductory Matters” by debunking an American myth: ”In spite of what the anti-immigration proponents will tell you, Tijuana is NOT “a teeming staging area for a massive assault on America, [and] you might be surprised at how many people have no intention of ever crossing the border,” he insists. “No matter what anyone tells you, a population of more than a million people, living in one of the top money-making cities in Mexico, and the most visited city, and the most reviled city, and the most Disneyfied city, are not going to crunch through the fabulous fence we have erected. They aren’t going anywhere.”
Urrea reports how “young Mexican intellectuals with a slightly revolutionary bent have coined a pet name for Tijuana. They call it Palestijuas, Tijuana-Palestine.” The resemblance does not go unnoticed: the looming fence, the circling helicopters, the hordes of cramped people on one side, the threat of armed Border Patrols on the other. Even the land – as Tijuana’s citizens see it from thousands of miles away on salvaged televisions running on diverted electricity – is cause for “amazed” recognition: “the West Bank! Why, it looks exactly like Tijuana,” the crowds exclaim.
Amidst these teeming multitudes, Urrea shares the often unbearable stories of those who stay: “It’s a forum for the voiceless,” he describes his book, the fulfillment of a promise he made to a garbage dump dweller who insisted, “‘And nobody will ever know that I lived. So tell them about me. Tell them I was here.’”
Here the body count is gruesome … and high. Here Urrea exposes the sudden appearance of ‘a lake of sleeping children’ after a spontaneous flood, the tragic fate of four young boys deserted overnight by their parents, a disturbing glimpse into a less-than-well-run orphanage, and a heartfelt introduction to a beer-drinking nun who isn’t above ignoring ridiculous laws in order to protect orphan children. His most unforgettable piece examines 24 wrenching hours in the lives of three dump families trying to survive another day.
Urrea has a whole chapter to teach you how to curse, Tijuana style. He doesn’t flinch (although he warns you in case you might flinch, or worse …) when he recounts some of the mind-boggling horrors he’s witnessed against innocent animals; that chapter, “The Bald Monkey and Other Atrocities,” when first published in a newspaper, earned him not a few death threats. Ironic the lengths strangers will go to to express rage at abused animals … and yet what about the children … and the people …?
Once again, as in Wire, Urrea openly, honestly presents the overlooked humanity of voiceless lives … once more, his writing demands humane consideration and unflinching attention. You, we, all of us … should not, must not turn away.
Readers: Adult
Published: 1996 Continue reading
Filed under ..Adult Readers, .Memoir, .Nonfiction, Hapa, Latino/a
Across the Wire: Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border by Luis Alberto Urrea, photographs by John Lueders-Booth
Thanks to a sudden snowstorm and ensuing power outage, I had every excuse to strap on my headband flashlight and read the first of Luis Alberto Urrea‘s Border Trilogy without pause. Given the sheer gawk-factor of these pages, any excuses were negligible: This is definitely a riveting, shocking must-read. Realizing that the book was published almost two decades old (!) and not nearly enough has changed is the biggest jaw-dropping, head-shaking, gawk-inducer of all.
Born in Tijuana just south of the California/Mexico border – Urrea is hapa: Mexican on his father’s side and U.S.-American on his mother’s side – Urrea never really left, even when living elsewhere. Check his blog: his entry for December 8th, 2010 has him back in Tijuana, reliving an experience almost straight out of Across the Wire. “Tijuana is Mexico’s cast-off child,” Urrea writes of his birthplace, where the tragedies, brutal crimes, murders, addictions, and the unimaginably difficult everyday lives in this collection take place.
In 1978, Urrea met “a remarkable preacher known as Pastor Von,” a 30-year-veteran of “slogging through the Borderlands mud”; this book is simply dedicated “For Von.” Into the bottomless depths of Tijuana’s poverty, Urrea followed Von to the garbage dumps and shanty villages, bearing food, water, medicine, building materials, and sometimes just a willingness to listen.
In the dumps, the Cheese Lady drags him to meet a newly arrived woman named Jesus and her large family, whose 13-year-old daughter must hide in the family shack as howling men circle trying to “break though the doors and walls to get to her.” He meets Pacha, a young mother of too many who loses another child, and Mrs. Serrano, a woman literally desiccated from lack of food and water, who miraculously delivers a healthy baby.
He meets and loses Negra, a little girl who will haunt him for years. He recalls the reed-thin, glue-sniffing addicts, a fire-blinded kitten whose gratitude lasts through its final purr, the careless inhumanity of a Tijuana policeman who insists he’s “‘a cop, not a monster,’” and his father’s own mysterious and violent death. He is remarkable in his ability to be unflinching at the horrors he witnesses, and yet never so distanced as to ever not be achingly, powerfully humane.
With the latest round of whose-side-of-the-border-are-you-on-headlines, sharing Urrea’s memories couldn’t be more timely. Beyond the “ambassadors of poverty” – as Urrea refers to scourges like lice and scabies, neverending diseases from diarrhea to chronic hernia, even madness and “‘demon possession’” – Urrea captures life just 20 minutes from and yet clearly a whole world away from San Diego. He repeatedly reminds us that these are our neighbors, no matter how easy to ignore and forget, invisible from San Diego’s sparkling skyline, which for most of the bordertown’s survivors remains forever out of reach.
Readers: Adult
Published: 1993 Continue reading
Filed under ..Adult Readers, .Memoir, .Nonfiction, Hapa, Latino/a
Pretty Delicious by Candice Kumai, photographs by Quentin Bacon
Forget pillow talk; get in the kitchen with your favorite FWBs – that’s Foods With Benefits, according to Candice Kumai, also known as the Stiletto Chef and co-host of Lifetime’s Cook Yourself Thin.
Thanks to her FWBs, Kumai’s first cookbook is all about “eating well that’s healthy, lean, and budget friendly.” Kumai, a model-turned-chef who’s determined to look “fabulous forever,” argues that “weight loss marketing traps” are expensive and mostly feature “fake food (yes, … as in made in a science lab!).” Given the rampant rates of obesity and other health problems in the U.S., she hardly needs to convince anyone that “we’re making ourselves sick (and broke!).”
So Kumai builds every meal with her favorite FWBs: “the good stuff naturally takes center stage.” She starts by shopping for whole, natural, unprocessed foods, and organic when available. Health – both yours and our planet’s – is worth the investment, she rightfully insists. And with a nod to the homemade Japanese-Polish-American meals her mother made growing up, Kumai cooks with the best ingredients available, as often as she can (enhanced by her Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts training!). She’s figured out what tastes great, and are great for her body, inside and out. And she’s got a whole book to show you how … “no ifs, ands, or butts about it.”
More than just a recipe collection, Kumai offers “7 Slimming Ways to Stretch Food and Save Calories and Cash,” her “FWB Philosophy” with a chart of her favorite FWBs a few pages later with benefits clearly spelled out, and plenty of feel-good, look-good, do-good encouragement along the way.
Her recipes indeed look so simple and delicious, that I’m thinking of breaking out a measuring cup or two (and I hate to cook, but I do love to eat .. !). Better yet, I think I’m going to hand over the whole volume to the far-more-kitchen-friendly-hubby with “try it, we’ll like it!” just in time for the next meal. How about Pear and Onion Flatbreads with Gorgonzola and Walnuts, dished up with Olive-Oil-Grilled Chicken over Quinoa-Spinach Salad? With a couple Lemon Babycakes for dessert? Mmm mmm gooood! Let’s eat!
Readers: Adult
Published: 2011 Continue reading
Filed under ..Adult Readers, .Nonfiction, Hapa, Japanese American
Becoming Naomi León by Pam Muñoz Ryan
“I always thought the biggest problem in my life was my name, Naomi Soledad León Outlaw, but little did I know that it was the least of my troubles, or that someday I would live up to it.” So opens Pam Muñoz Ryan‘s swiftly moving coming-of-age tale of missing parents, dual cultures, and the meaning of family.
As in many of her novels, Ryan deals sensitively and honestly with the sometimes harsh realities of even the youngest lives. Naomi and her younger brother – physically challenged, but brilliant – live with Gram, their great-grandmother, because seven years ago, their mother abandoned the children in terrible condition. Thanks to Gram’s consistent nurturing (not to mention some serious medical care), the children and she have become a cozy family, living in a trailer named Baby Beluga, beached in Lemon Tree, southern California, surrounded by supportive friends.
Unannounced (of course), Terri Lynn – now calling herself Skyla Jones – is back, this time with a tattoo artist boyfriend named Clive. Saccharine-sweet Skyla decides she wants her kids back, and thinks she can buy their affection with Clive’s money. Naomi is initially desperate to get to know her long-missing mother, who gently braids her unruly hair and buys her trendy new outfits (so different from the polyester-remnant clothing Gram makes for both kids). But Skyla’s flimsy demeanor quickly begins to crack, and Naomi learns that her mother is still the troubled, trouble-making woman she always was … and she will stop at almost nothing to fulfill her selfish goals. Gram is not willing to risk the children’s well-being … and she will fight her own grandchild with everything she has, including deep-held secrets that will change Naomi and Owen’s lives forever. Let the wild ride (in Baby Beluga!) begin …
Reading Naomi León from a parent’s perspective will no doubt jerk the heart-strings. While much of the story is familiar – divorce wreaks havoc especially on the children, bad parents do exist, scam artists come in all shapes and sizes – Ryan’s novel is reassuring comfort that unbreakable family bonds can grow from overwhelming challenges. With encouragement from loved ones – whether family, teachers, caring friends – a child’s voice can sometimes be her strongest asset as Naomi comes into the power of her hapa Mexican name, Naomi the Lion, and ultimately learns to roar.
Readers: Middle Grade
Published: 2004 Continue reading
Filed under ..Middle Grade Readers, .Audio, .Fiction, Hapa, Latino/a
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