NIGHTLY READING THREAD: This is Edition #79 of #GMGReads. Every night through this (increasingly) weird (and sad) time, I've been tweeting out a list of my five favorite books around a general theme—and a link to an indie bookstore where you can order them online....
After featuring writers of color last night, I wanted to feature books tonight on race and immigration in America—several of which focus on the Latinx border experience. Order them from @thelitbar, owned by an Afro-Latina & only book store in the Bronx: bookshop.org/shop/thelitbar
1) I competed against and envied the reporting of Jose Antonio Vargas (@joseiswriting) for years and never realized he was an undocumented immigrant. He told his story in the eye-opening and moving DEAR AMERICA: bookshop.org/books/dear-ame…
2) This spring, I had the chance to read DEPORTATION MACHINE by Adam Goodman (@adamsigoodman), which comes out later this month, and it's a phenomenal and groundbreaking study of how—surprise—immigration enforcement has *always* been about race: bookshop.org/books/the-depo…
3) Jia Lynn Yang's (@jialynnyang) ONE MIGHTY AND IRRESISTIBLE TIDE, which came out last month, is a whole chapter of immigration history I didn't know—and ultimately a hopeful note that while America gets things wrong, we work to make them right over time: bookshop.org/books/one-migh…
PS: Erika Lee (@prof_erikalee) has a book, AT AMERICA'S GATES, about the slightly earlier dark period of America's Asian exclusion laws, 1882-1943: bookshop.org/books/at-ameri…
4) I read Richard Rodriguez's memoir HUNGER OF MEMORY in high school—it might well have been the first book I ever read by a Hispanic writer—and it's stuck with me ever since: bookshop.org/books/hunger-o…
PS: I've previously mentioned @IsabelWilkerson's WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS, about the internal American immigration of blacks northward in the Great Migration and it deserves re-mentioning here:
5) Lastly, three books stand out to me about the border: Francisco Cantú's (@_franciscocantu) THE LINE BECOMES A RIVER explores the complex relationship with race along the border, where he, a descendent of Mexican immigrants, joined the Border Patrol: bookshop.org/books/the-line…
Then there's Luis Alberto Urrea's THE DEVIL'S HIGHWAY bookshop.org/books/the-devi… and Jason De Leon's THE LAND OF OPEN GRAVES, which both trace the high human cost along the border: bookshop.org/books/the-land…
Those are tonight's #GMGReads. What are your favorite books about race and immigration? What books are you ordering this week to expand your mind and perspective? Share! #avidreadersunite
