Fleeing war, pursuing an education, missing family and friends, living a dream, living in a family member's dream, trying to fit in, and intergenerational clashes are among the themes of fictional tales of immigrants.
Thrown out of her parents’ threadbare home for speaking with contempt to her low-achieving father, twenty-two year-old Casey Han strives to maintain the excessively high standard of living she enjoyed as a student on scholarship at Princeton. Fellow Korean immigrants, co-workers, friends, boyfriends and churchgoers aid and abet Casey in her quest.
Working at a refugee resettlement center in Manhattan, Jonas Woldemarian edits and embellishes the personal statements of asylum applicants. As he recounts the violent and numbing saga of his father’s escape from war torn Ethiopia and his mother’s adjustment upon her arrival in Peoria, Illinois, Jonas may or may not again be embellishing.
Nidali, the daughter of a Palestinian father and an Egyptian-Greek mother, recounts with comedic aplomb her childhood in Kuwait, her family’s harrowing escape during the Iraqi invasion, the no-holds-barred fights between her parents, her teenage years in Egypt, and the family’s ultimate move to Texas where she is routinely perceived as a Spanish-speaking Latina.
Born in Boston soon after his parents arrive from Calcutta, Gogul Ganguli grows up embracing American ways that are an affront to his family’s Bengali heritage. He even legally changes his given name, which his father had chosen to honor a Russian writer he credits with saving his life.
Changez reminisces to an American he meets in Lahore, Pakistan, about his meteoric rise to success in a New York financial firm, and his acceptance in elite social circles via his relationship with a woman he met while a student at Princeton University. After September 11, 2001, his love for his new country transforms.
Though she has lived in America for almost thirty years, Armaiti’s greatest wish, when diagnosed with a brain tumor, is for a reunion with her three best friends from their undergraduate student activist days in Bombay. Laleh and Kavita don’t hesitate to accept the invitation to travel to America, but they first need to find Nishta, who disappeared when her Hindu parents disowned her for marrying a Muslim