Inclusive Collection: J

"... firmly situates the South Asian American narratives she examines in “the ongoing American story” of immigration and assimilation ... focusing on how these narratives complicate our understanding of the American dream and reveal the complexities of (national) belonging in an era of heightened trans-national exchanges.

Fiction. "A tale inspired by the 1976 attempted assassination of Bob Marley spans decades and continents to explore the experiences of journalists, drug dealers, killers and ghosts against a backdrop of period social and political turmoil."

"Omar and his younger brother, Hassan, have spent most of their lives in Dadaab, a refugee camp in Kenya. Life is hard there : never enough food, achingly dull, and without access to the medical care Omar's nonverbal brother needs. So when Omar has the opportunity to go to school, he knows it might be a chance to change their future...but it would also mean leaving his brother, his only family member remaining, every day. Heartbreak, hope, and gentle humor exist together in this graphic novel about a childhood spent waiting, and a young man who is able to create a sense of family and home in the most difficult of settings. It's an intimate, important, unforgettable look at the day-to-day life of a refugee, as told to New York Times bestselling author/artist Victoria Jamieson by Omar Mohamed, the Somali man who lived the story and went on to help so many other refugees."

"Born in 1947 in upper-crust black Chicago--her father was for years head of pediatrics at Provident, at the time the nation's oldest black hospital; her mother was a socialite--Margo Jefferson has spent most of her life among (call them what you will) the colored aristocracy, the colored elite, the blue-vein society. Since the nineteenth century they have stood apart, these inhabitants of Negroland, "a small region of Negro America where residents were sheltered by a certain amount of privilege and plenty." Reckoning with the strictures and demands of Negroland at crucial historical moments--the civil rights movement, the dawn of feminism, the fallacy of post-racial America--Jefferson brilliantly charts the twists and turns of a life informed by psychological and moral contradictions."

"This book tells the story of the rise and fall of the first civil rights era, viewed through the lens of action in the US Congress. The first civil rights era, as we define it, extends from 1861 through 1918, or from the Civil War through the First World War. During that time the formal status of African Americans shifted from slave to citizen and then to something in between. This distinctive path was largely determined by laws and, later, failed laws in Congress. Many books tell the story of African Americans during these years. Our book is explicitly about how the arc of civil rights was determined by Congress over these five decades and more."

"Examines how young adults discover their cultures through education, art, spirituality, and personal survival strategies. Provides an analysis of why minority youth's cultural backgrounds should be acknowledged by institutions of higher education in order for the students to excel."

"From the time she was two years old, Jazz knew that she had a girl's brain in a boy's body. She loved pink and dressing up as a mermaid and didn't feel like herself in boys' clothing. This confused her family, until they took her to a doctor who said that Jazz was transgender and that she was born that way."

"... Jimenez Caballero has created an identity that bridges his Mexican indigenous heritage with the overall Latino culture of southern California. Through all of his trials and tribulations he created a successful life for a young indigenous boy who had grown up in a culturally mixed, Mestizo-indigenous, peasant village where the cows and horses had to be chased off a grass landing strip. From these humble beginnings he moved up to the bright lights and fame as a jewelry artist to the stars in Hollywood. Jimenez Caballero's success as an entrepreneur and artist opened doors where he connected with the wealthy elite and became a celebrated philanthropist."

"In a voice that is warm, humble, and open, this is Elton on his music and his relationships, his passions and his mistakes."

"This book draws from the successes of award-winning schools, teachers, students, and parents to help leaders understand how they can positively change the educational experience of Black students. When Black Students Excel offers real-life examples of outstanding elementary, middle, and high schools where teachers and school leaders have rejected policies and practices built upon deficit perceptions about the capacity of Black students. Chapters highlight leadership implications and offer specific suggestions for educators who are seeking to transform their schools in ways that advance the success of Black students."

"Despite Black Americans being at high risk for negative mental health symptoms due to racism and other chronic stresses, disparities persist in the provision of mental health services to this population. This book addresses that gap in clinical practice by explicitly calling attention to the experience of race-based stress in the Black community. Johnson and Melton urge mental health practitioners to action in promoting societal understanding, affirmation, and appreciation of multiculturalism against the damaging effects of individual, institutional, and societal racism, prejudice, and all forms of oppression based on stereotyping and discrimination."

Fiction. "It's 2008, and the rise of Barack Obama ushers in a new kind of hope. In Chicago, Ruth Tuttle, an Ivy-League educated black engineer, is married to a kind and successful man. He's eager to start a family, but Ruth is uncertain. She has never gotten over the baby she gave birth to, and abandoned, when she was a teenager. She had promised her family she'd never look back, but Ruth knows that to move forward, she must make peace with the past."

"... engages ways in which African Americans, since the founding of the United States, have understood their struggle for freedom and liberty as a feature of changes within the Atlantic world. The essays in this volume capture how African Americans grappled with those questions, as the struggle for liberty in the United States continued through the end of the nineteenth century, when new regimes of power implemented systems of racial oppression that truncated what the historian Hasan Kwame Jeffries calls "Freedom Rights" for freedmen and women after the passing of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments. This book charts the diverse ways in which African Americans utilized the Atlantic world in search of the ideals of liberty that they were denied at home. Black internationalism included emigration abroad, lecture tours in Europe denouncing slavery, and missionary activity in King Leopold's Congo, illustrating an international consciousness among black Americans."

Fiction. "Isaiah was Samuel's and Samuel was Isaiah's. That was the way it was since the beginning, and the way it was to be until the end. In the barn they tended to the animals, but also to each other, transforming the hollowed-out shed into a place of sanctuary, a source of intimacy and hope in a world ruled by vicious masters. But when a older man - a fellow slave - seeks to gain favor by preaching the master's gospel on the plantation, the enslaved begin to turn on their own. Isaiah and Samuel's love, which was once so simple, is seen as sinful and a clear danger to the plantation's harmony."

"Jones tells the story of a young, black, gay man from the South as he fights to carve out a place for himself, within his family, within his country, within his own hopes, desires, and fears. Through a series of vignettes that chart a course across the American landscape, Jones draws readers into his boyhood and adolescence - into tumultuous relationships with his family, into passing flings with lovers, friends, and strangers. Each piece builds into a larger examination of race and queerness, power and vulnerability, love and grief: a portrait of what we all do for one another - and to one another - as we fight to become ourselves."