Immigrant Stories: Nonfiction

What's it like to move your whole life to a new place? Read these true stories, personal experiences, opinions, and history

Updated June 5, 2023
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"They take our jobs!" : and 20 other myths about immigration
Chomsky, Aviva
Claims that immigrants take Americans' jobs, are a drain on the American economy, contribute to poverty and inequality, destroy the social fabric, challenge American identity, and contribute to a host of social ills by their very existence are openly discussed and debated at all levels of society....
Beyond the sand and sea : one family's quest for a country to call home
McCormick, Ty
From Ty McCormick, winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, an epic and timeless story of a family in search of safety, security, and a place to call home. When Asad Hussein was growing up in the world's largest refugee camp, nearly every aspect of life revolved...
Beyond welcome : centering immigrants in our Christian response to immigration
González, Karen
★ Publishers Weekly starred review"A top-notch Christian look at immigration, humane and full of heart."--Publishers WeeklyMany American Christians have good intentions, working hard to welcome immigrants with hospitality and solidarity. But how...
Brother, I'm dying
Danticat, Edwidge
From the bestselling author of The Dew Breaker comes a major work of nonfiction: a powerfully moving family story that centers around the men closest to the authors heart--her father, Mira, and his older brother, Joseph.
Brown album : essays on exile and identity
Khakpour, Porochista
From the much-acclaimed novelist and essayist, a beautifully rendered, poignant collection of personal essays, chronicling immigrant and Iranian-American life in our contemporary moment. Novelist Porochista Khakpour's family moved to Los Angeles after fleeing the Iranian...
City of dreams : the 400-year epic history of immigrant New York
Anbinder, Tyler
A defining American story of millions of immigrants, hundreds of languages, and one great city New York has been America's city of immigrants for nearly four centuries. Growing from Peter Minuit's tiny settlement of 1626 to one with more than three million...
Conditional citizens : on belonging in America
Lalami, Laila
A New York Times Editors' Choice * Best Book of the Year: Time, NPR, Bookpage, L.A. Times What does it mean to be American? In this starkly illuminating and impassioned book, Pulitzer Prize­­-finalist Laila Lalami recounts her unlikely...
The far away brothers : two young migrants and the making of an American life
Markham, Lauren
The deeply reported story of identical twin brothers who escape El Salvador's violence to build new lives in California--fighting to survive, to stay, and to belong. "Impeccably timed, intimately reported, and beautifully expressed."--The New York Times ...
A map is only one story : twenty writers on immigration, family, and the meaning of home
Chung, Nicole
From rediscovering an ancestral village in China to experiencing the realities of American life as a Nigerian, the search for belonging crosses borders and generations. Selected from the archives ofCatapultmagazine, the essays inA Map Is Only One Storyhighlight the...
Melting pot or civil war? : a son of immigrants makes the case against open borders
Salam, Reihan
Rejecting both militant multiculturalism and white identity politics, Salam suggests that immigration restriction is the best way to combat rising inequality, balance diversity with assimilation, and create a new nationalism that puts the interests of Americans - native or foreign-born, of all...
Of fear and strangers : a history of xenophobia
Makari, George
By 2016, it was impossible to ignore an international resurgence of xenophobia. What had happened? Looking for clues, psychiatrist and historian George Makari started out in search of the idea's origins. To his astonishment, he discovered an unfolding series of never-told stories. While a fear...
One mighty and irresistible tide : the epic struggle over American immigration, 1924-1965
Yang, Jia Lynn
The idea of the United States as a nation of immigrants is at the core of the American narrative. But in 1924, Congress instituted a system of ethnic quotas so stringent that it choked off large-scale immigration for decades, sharply curtailing arrivals from southern and eastern Europe and...
The Penguin book of migration literature : departures, arrivals, generations, returns
Ahmad, Dohra
[Ahmad's] "introduction is fiery and charismatic... This book encompasses the diversity of experience, with beautiful variations and stories that bicker back and forth." --Parul Sehgal, The New York Times The first global anthology of migration literature featuring works by...
Peoples on the move : the immigration crisis
Sorensen, Lita
Immigration has been a hot-button topic in the United States for many years. More recently, other western nations have grappled with their own migrant crises. The issue has divided conservatives and liberals and has possibly fueled nationalist sentiment in the US and countries in western Europe....
Separated : inside an American tragedy
Soboroff, Jacob
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "The seminal book on the child-separation policy." --Rachel Maddow The award-winning NBC News correspondent lays bare the full truth behind America's systematic separation of families at the US-Mexico border. Los Angeles Times Book...
Solito : a memoir
Zamora, Javier
New York Times Bestseller * Read With Jenna Book Club Pick as seen on Today * Winner of the Los Angeles Times Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiography * Winner of the American Library Association Alex Award A young poet tells the inspiring story of his ...

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