Conditional Citizens: On Belonging in America (2020) by Laila Lalami

This non-fiction book by award-winning, Pulitzer Prize nominated author Laila Lalami discusses Lalami’s journey as a Moroccan immigrant in America. She discusses how the legislative and political systems of the United States maintain white supremacy with the intention of creating an American caste system with white men at the top and “conditional citizens” arrayed below. She asks questions about what it means to be American and to exist as a person of color in a country that embraces one with one arm and pushes one away with another.

A Map Is Only One Story: Twenty Writers on Immigration, Family and the Meaning of Home (2020) edited by Nicole Chung & Mensah Demary

This anthology of essays features the personal stories of 20 authors on immigration, culture, and politicized rhetoric surrounding these issues. The stories are diverse, featuring narratives about families separated by the US-Mexico border between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, the rediscovery of an ancestral village in China, and the danger of being a migrant after Partition at the border of India and Pakistan. The authors explore their cultural identities as well as what home means to them—two topics that Gharib’s memoir also addresses.