Greenburgh Public Library Blog

Did you know that the US Asian population has grown 72% since 2000? While there is no one dominant group, those of Chinese, Indian, and Filipino descent are the largest groups. In the NY-NJ-PA Metropolitan area, there are approximately 482,000 people of Chinese origin (excluding Taiwan), which makes this area first in Asian population for Metropolitan Statistical Areas (2013-17) in the US. According to the Pew Research Center, “fast population growth suggests they will eventually be the nation’s largest immigrant group. Looking forward, Asians are projected to become the largest immigrant group in the country, surpassing Hispanics in 2055. In 50 years, Asians will make up 38% of all U.S. immigrants, while Hispanics will make up 31% of the nation’s immigrant population.”

While the history of people from Asia coming to the US is extremely complex, there are a number of well-written stories that reflect their experiences. Here are just a few, from well-established women authors of Asian heritage: 

Lisa See was born in Paris but grew up in Los Angeles. She lived with her mother but spent a lot of time with her father’s family in Chinatown. Her first book, On Gold Mountain: The One Hundred Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family (1995)  was a national bestseller. The book traces the journey of Lisa’s great-grandfather, Fong See, who overcame obstacles at every step to become the 100-year-old godfather of Los Angeles’s Chinatown and the patriarch of a sprawling family. My favorites of her work include Shanghai Girls and its sequel Dreams of Joy; and The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane.Her newest novel The Island of Sea Women, is about female friendship and family secrets on a small Korean island.

Celeste Ng, of Chinese-American heritage, is the author of two novels:  Little Fires Everywhere (2017) and Everything I never told you (2014). She grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Shaker Heights, Ohio. She graduated from Harvard University and earned an MFA from the University of Michigan. Her novel Everything I never told you reflects her Ohio background and is "both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive family portrait, exploring the divisions between cultures and the rifts within a family, and uncovering the ways in which mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives struggle, all their lives, to understand one another."