Teens, undoubtedly you have noticed a national election is quickly approaching. While elections are always contentious, the recent past has witnessed some of the wildest contests to-date, and with an explosion of unreliable news sources slithering around the Internet and social media, it’s easy for important issues to get muddied. One of those issues is immigration. It confuses me! I didn’t want to be swayed by generalizations rooted in anxiety and fear, so I set out on a mission to inform my opinion using Young Adult (YA) literature as a starting point.
While I didn’t expect these YA books to clarify any complicated policy arguments, I did hope to humanize the issue with stories about human beings, some real and some fictional, that would help me avoid seeing immigrants through a single, threatening lens. Even if you’re not old enough to vote in this election, you’re definitely old enough to think about important things, so I’m sharing my reading list if, like me, you’re interested a fuller perspective.
It all started with Thien Pham’s Young Adult graphic novel memoir “Family Style: Memories of an American from Vietnam.” First of all, it’s a graphic novel, a format that excels at conveying nuance and emotion because, of course, the story isn’t limited to words. Illustrations are so layered and revealing! And graphic novels are so speedy and fun to read! (Ad break for graphic novels over, back to the book.) “Family Style” follows Thien’s experiences as a kid when his family fled Vietnam in the late seventies and landed in a totally new world: Northern California.
Thien’s young life, which swings from traumatic episodes (his boat to the Songkhla Refugee Camp was attacked by pirates!) to moments of exhilarating triumph (the girl he has a crush on enters his family’s video store!), is remembered in the context of food; each chapter is titled with the dish that defines that specific time in his life, from bánh cuốn to steak and potatoes. If you want to satisfy your inner foodie while simultaneously opening your eyes to the whiplashing experience of leaving everything you know behind—or if Thien’s story resonates with you—order up a serving of “Family Style.”
In “Breathe and Count Back from Ten” by Natalia Sylvester, seventeen-year-old Verónica feels like she can’t do anything to satisfy her overprotective, Peruvian-born parents. It doesn’t help that she has hip dysplasia, a medical condition that makes moving around in everyday life painful…except when she’s in the water. When an opportunity arises for her to audition for her dream job performing in her town’s local attraction, Mermaid Cove, she knows her parents will think it’s a waste of time, and worse, a waste of their sacrifices. Nor will they understand Verónica’s budding feelings for her new, cute neighbor (understatement).
Sometimes you arrive at inflection points in your life; points that force you to decide whose dreams you’re going to follow…yours or someone else’s? So many relatable issues bubble to the surface in “Breathe and Count Back from Ten”…check it out if it sounds like something you may be into.
You may also want to add “Americanized: Rebel Without a Green Card” by Sara Saedi and “An Emotion of Great Delight” by Tahereh Mafi to your reading list if you don’t want to stop here. Even though I definitely still don’t know everything there is to know about immigration in the context of politics, I’m glad these stories are now with me to help me resist fear and recognize connection. We hope you’ll come find stories, on any topic, that help you do the same.