10 Books to read for AAPI Heritage Month

May 2026

In honor of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Acacia Center for Justice staff are sharing some of our favorite books by Asian American writers who explore the broad tapestry of immigrant experiences.

Mỹ Documents by Kevin Nguyen
In response to a series of terror attacks, the U.S. government incarcerates Vietnamese Americans in internment camps, upending the lives of four cousins. Nguyen draws from real events, from the WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans to modern immigrant detention, to create a reality that feels not too far from our own.

Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen by Jose Antonio Vargas
“This is not a book about the politics of immigration…This book is about lying and being forced to lie to get by; about passing as an American and as a contributing citizen; about families, keeping them together, and having to make new ones when you can’t. This book is about constantly hiding from the government and, in the process, hiding from ourselves. This book is about what it means to not have a home.

After 25 years of living illegally in a country that does not consider me one of its own, this book is the closest thing I have to freedom.”
—Jose Antonio Vargas, from Dear America

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
Willis Wu is a background character in his own life. He dreams of being a main character, but as a Taiwanese American, he is stuck playing stereotypes in his world: a perpetual police drama set in Chinatown. Formatted as a TV script, the novel interrogates race, Hollywood tropes, and societal expectations.

Citizen 13660 by Mine Okubo
Okubo’s illustrated memoir depicts the reality of the concentration camp where she was incarcerated with thousands of other Japanese Americans during World War II. Printed in 1946, Citizen 13660 was the first real look into the camps, as cameras were banned.

The Mountains Sing by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai
This is the saga of the Trần family through decades of Vietnamese history, spanning French colonialism to the Vietnam War, to the present day. Quế Mai centers women at the novel’s forefront, weaving between the POV of matriarch Diệu Lan and her granddaughter Hương.

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
Cyrus is an Iranian American poet whose life has been marked by tragedy. Guided by the voices of artists, poets, and kings, he embarks on a remarkable search for a family secret that leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum.

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
A son writes a letter to his mother, who cannot read. He recounts the lives of his mother and grandmother as they survived the Vietnam War, eventually bringing him to the U.S. as refugees. With compassion and tenderness, the novel asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are.

Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong
In an autobiographical book of essays, Hong examines racial consciousness in the U.S. by sharing her own experiences as a Korean American, blending memoir with cultural criticism and history.

A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar
A family is just days away from joining their father in the U.S, when their immigration documents are stolen. In a near-future Kolkata ravaged by climate change and hunger, a mother desperately searches for the documents, as the thief also fights to feed his family: both discovering how far they will go to protect their loved ones.

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
After her mother’s death from cancer, Michelle Zauner grieves and reflects on their complex relationship. She grapples with her identity, reconnecting with the Korean food and culture that remind Zauner of her mother.