2025 - Read About the Immigrant Experience

tsprengel's profile picture tsprengel Host

9 participants (15 books)

01 Nov 2024—31 Dec 2025

Overview

The Challenge:
With how much immigrants have been villainized and dehumanized in the American media landscape, I want to make a point of understanding both the people and the countries they came from in 2025.

So please join me in a year-long reading challenge to diversify our reading and read 12 books about the immigrant experience - fiction, nonfiction, or a mix of the two!

The Rules:
Only one. Please try to focus on Own Voices authors as much as possible. The term Own Voices means that the author is part of the marginalized group they are writing about. (e.g. a Mexican author writing about Mexico, a child of immigrants writing about being a child of immigrants, etc.). 

If you are unable to find an Own Voices book that fits the prompt, then a book of interviews, an ethnography, etc. written by a non-Own Voices authors may be substituted, but it must feature extensive commentary coming directly from the marginalized group if at all possible. 

Challenge Books

All books added
The Beauty of Your Face: A Novel by Sahar Mustafah

The Beauty of Your Face: A Novel

Sahar Mustafah

312 pages • first pub 2020 (editions)

fiction literary emotional reflective slow-paced
The Best That You Can Do by Amina Gautier

The Best That You Can Do

Amina Gautier

256 pages • first pub 2024 (editions)

fiction short stories challenging reflective medium-paced
Good Girl by Aria Aber

Good Girl

Aria Aber

9 hours, 31 minutes • first pub 2025 (editions)

fiction literary dark emotional reflective medium-paced
Infinite Country by Patricia Engel

Infinite Country

Patricia Engel

191 pages • first pub 2021 (editions)

fiction literary emotional reflective sad medium-paced
My Side of the River by Elizabeth Camarillo Gutierrez

My Side of the River

Elizabeth Camarillo Gutierrez

6 hours, 36 minutes • first pub 2024 (editions)

nonfiction memoir emotional informative reflective medium-paced
Conditional Citizens: On Belonging in America by Laila Lalami

Conditional Citizens: On Belonging in America

Laila Lalami

208 pages • first pub 2020 (editions)

nonfiction memoir politics challenging informative reflective slow-paced
All That's Left Unsaid by Tracey Lien

All That's Left Unsaid

Tracey Lien

293 pages • first pub 2022 (editions)

fiction contemporary literary mystery emotional reflective sad medium-paced
Children of the Land: A Memoir by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo

Children of the Land: A Memoir

Marcelo Hernandez Castillo

384 pages • first pub 2020 (editions)

nonfiction memoir poetry challenging emotional reflective slow-paced
Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen by Jose Antonio Vargas

Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen

Jose Antonio Vargas

256 pages • first pub 2018 (editions)

nonfiction memoir politics challenging emotional reflective medium-paced
The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

The Undocumented Americans

Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

185 pages • first pub 2020 (editions)

nonfiction memoir politics challenging emotional reflective medium-paced