A compelling saga of mothers and daughters, survival and striving, women, family, and culture that will resonate with all Americans who have immigrant roots. This fascinating book takes a new and different look at the immigrant experience of Asian Americans. Through the voice of her Chinese mother, the author examines perennial themes of separation, loss, guilt, and bicultural identity in the lives of immigrant families. Grounded in a historical context that spans events of more than a century, World War II, McCarthyism, Civil Rights, the Women's movement, this volume: Uses oral history to show how families rely upon myth and legend as they adjust to a new culture. Illustrates how strong cultural and intergenerational bonds can both support and oppress Chinese American families; Uses Asian mythology and symbols to understand the psyche of Chinese Americans and their immigration experience, illustrating the contrasting world views of Asian and Western culture. Provides strategies for coping with the immigration experience for use by counselors and other professionals.

Following her diagnosis with breast cancer, clinical psychologist and noted family therapist Kathy Weingarten became acutely aware of deeply ingrained cultural messages about mothering that were limiting her ability to share emotional intimacy with her children under crisis conditions. She began to question popular beliefs about what makes a "good mother," and to rethink the meanings of maternal self-disclosure and hierarchy within the family. Reworking the story of her motherhood, and her relationship to her own mother's story, Weingarten forged a new authenticity in her relationship with her son and daughter. Accessible to general readers, and excellent for client assignment, the book will inform and inspire professionals and students in family therapy, clinical psychology, and women's studies. The paperback edition features a new preface describing the author's continuing professional, theoretical, and personal transformations.

Named Honor Book of the Year by the Children’s Literature Association Winner: 2003 Canadian Jewish Book Award for scholarship on a Jewish subject Finalist: 2003 Alberta Book Awards Scholarly Book of the Year How do children’s books represent the Holocaust? How do such books negotiate the tension between the desire to protect children, and the commitment to tell children the truth about the world? If Holocaust representations in children’s books respect the narrative conventions of hope and happy endings, how do they differ, if at all, from popular representations intended for adult audiences? And where does innocence lie, if the children’s fable of Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful is marketed for adults, and far more troubling survivor memoirs such as Anita Lobel’s No Pretty Pictures: A Child of War are marketed for children? How should Holocaust Studies integrate discourse about children’s literature into its discussions? In approaching these and other questions, Kertzer uses the lens of children’s literature to problematize the ways in which various adult discourses represent the Holocaust, and continually challenges the conventional belief that children’s literature is the place for easy answers and optimistic lessons.

Perhaps because we called our mother Diddi, elder sister, our relationship with her was always somewhat ambivalent. More than a mother she was for us a difficult sibling, an eccentric, much older sister who belonged to a different generation. Attempting to unravel the enigma that was her mother, Ira Pande trawls through her writings to recall the life and times of a mother who was also a household name as Shivani, novelist, storyteller and columnist. In the process she discovers a rich and colourful cast ranging from family retainers, grandmothers and aunts to neighbours, friends and fictional characters. Built around the deep ties between mothers and daughters, Diddi salutes the often decadent but highly literate members of a family that produced both eccentrics and brilliant writers. Deftly dovetailing fiction and memoir, with brilliant translations of Shivani s own stories taking the narrative forward in several places, the book is also a record of what happened to the proud Brahmin families of Kumaon when the old feudal order vanished and joint families broke up into nuclear units. A fascinating experiment in the genre of the biography-novel, Diddi blurs the boundaries between history and fiction to create an intensely personal work that has universal resonance.

Researching through volumes in several libraries and archives in the United States, author Kay Mouradian visited the village in Turkey where her mother and her mothers family, along with twenty-five thousand other Armenians, were forced to leave their homes. Traveling over the same deportation route to the deserts of Syria where more than a million Armenians perished, the author became acutely aware of the suffering of her mothers generation and the lingering sense of injustice they carried. Like the 6 million Jewish people lost in the Holocaust, Armenians lost an incredibly vibrant, successful, and valuable gene pool of more than a million as a result of the Armenian genocide. This story of fourteen-year-old Flora Munushian, the authors mother, brings an epic chapter in Armenian history to life and takes it to heart. Floras incredible story honors her people with dignity and personifies the human spirit of hope, love, and justice. Floras voice is that of all the victims and survivors of the Armenian Genocide, a story that must not be forgotten. I am my mothers voice, says Dr. Mouradian, and this is her story.

A collection of feminist essays steeped in “Solnit’s unapologetically observant and truth-speaking voice on toxic, violent masculinity” (The Los Angeles Review). In a timely and incisive follow-up to her national bestseller Men Explain Things to Me, Rebecca Solnit offers sharp commentary on women who refuse to be silenced, misogynistic violence, the fragile masculinity of the literary canon, the gender binary, the recent history of rape jokes, and much more. In characteristic style, “Solnit draw[s] anecdotes of female indignity or male aggression from history, social media, literature, popular culture, and the news . . . The main essay in the book is about the various ways that women are silenced, and Solnit focuses upon the power of storytelling—the way that who gets to speak, and about what, shapes how a society understands itself and what it expects from its members. The Mother of All Questions poses the thesis that telling women’s stories to the world will change the way that the world treats women, and it sets out to tell as many of those stories as possible” (The New Yorker). “There’s a new feminist revolution—open to people of all genders—brewing right now and Rebecca Solnit is one of its most powerful, not to mention beguiling, voices.”—Barbara Ehrenreich, New York Times–bestselling author of Natural Causes “Short, incisive essays that pack a powerful punch.” —Publishers Weekly “A keen and timely commentary on gender and feminism. Solnit’s voice is calm, clear, and unapologetic; each essay balances a warm wit with confident, thoughtful analysis, resulting in a collection that is as enjoyable and accessible as it is incisive.” —Booklist

"The dramatic, real-life stories of four young people caught up in the mass exodus of Shanghai in the wake of China's 1949 Communist Revolution--a precursor to the struggles faced by emigrants today. Shanghai has historically been China's jewel, its richest, most modern and westernized city. The bustling metropolis was home to sophisticated intellectuals, entrepreneurs, and a thriving middle class when Mao's proletarian revolution emerged victorious from the long civil war. Terrified of the horrors the Communists would wreak upon their lives, citizens of Shanghai who could afford to fled in every direction. Seventy years later, the last generation to fully recall this massive exodus have opened the story to Chinese American journalist Helen Zia, who interviewed hundreds of exiles about their journey through one of the most tumultuous events of the twentieth century. From these moving accounts, Zia weaves the story of four young Shanghai residents who wrestled with the decision to abandon everything for an uncertain life as refugees in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the U.S. Young Benny, who as a teenager became the unwilling heir to his father's dark wartime legacy, must choose between escaping Hong Kong or navigating the intricacies of a newly Communist China. The resolute Annuo, forced to flee her home with her father, a defeated Nationalist official, becomes an unwelcome young exile in Taiwan. The financially strapped Ho fights deportation in order to continue his studies in the U.S. while his family struggles at home. And Bing, given away by her poor parents, faces the prospect of a new life among strangers in America"--