In 1960s New York, fifth-grader Ruthie, a Cuban-Jewish immigrant, must rely on books, art, her family, and friends in her multicultural neighborhood when an accident puts her in a body cast.

On a dim winter afternoon, a young Irish immigrant opens the gas taps in his Brooklyn tenement. He is determined to prove--to the subway bosses who have recently fired him, to his badgering, pregnant wife--"that the hours of his life belong to himself alone." In the aftermath of the fire that follows, Sister St. Savior, an aging nun, a Little Sister of the Sick Poor, appears, unbidden, to direct the way forward for his widow and his unborn child....

"Eleven-year-old Zomorod, originally from Iran, tells her story of growing up Iranian in Southern California during the Iranian Revolution and hostage crisis of the late 1970s"--

In this powerful book we enter the world of  Jurgis Rudkus, a young Lithuanian immigrant who arrives  in America fired with dreams of wealth, freedom,  and opportunity. And we discover, with him, the  astonishing truth about "packingtown," the  busy, flourishing, filthy Chicago stockyards, where  new world visions perish in a jungle of human  suffering. Upton Sinclair,...

Through a series of poems, a young girl chronicles the life-changing year of 1975, when she, her mother, and her brothers leave Vietnam and resettle in Alabama.

After the police raid their house, Lenny starts talking about protests and injustices against Pacific Islanders by the government, which inspires the whole family to become involved in the movement.

"Pre WWI, Elsa came to America with her eyes wide open, realizing it was up to her to make a life for herself. Surviving a sweatshop in lower Manhattan, a chance job with a Long Island elite family opens up her world. Invited in, up to a point, she unwittingly, albeit precariously, crosses the social divide with her now open heart which puts all she worked for in jeopardy"--Cover, page 4.

"A child dreams of a life without borders after he and and his parents are forced to leave their home during the Mexican Repatriation"--

"Centers on Abel and Vera Paisley, a working-class Jamaican couple striving to build a better life for their children. Abel travels to London in the early 1960s in search of fortune. Instead, he sees an opportunity to escape the drudgery of his life by faking his death and assuming a new identity. Vera, now a widow, is racked with guilt over her husband's "death" and takes out her grief on her children, Irene and Vincent. The effects of Abel's decision...

Sweethearts since childhood, Ellie Hogan and her husband, John, are content on their farm in Ireland -- until John, a soldier for the Irish Republican Army, receives an injury that leaves him unable to work. Forced to take drastic measures in order to survive, Ellie does what so many Irish women in the 1920s have done and sails across a vast ocean to New York City to work as a maid for a wealthy socialite. Once there, Ellie is introduced to a world...