A little late on Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander month, which was in May and PRIDE month in June, but I wanted to highlight some of my favorite books. I so appreciate being able to reserve and check out books from the Seattle Public Library, and the hard work library staff does consistently to feature and display books for folks of all ages during these theme months. My commitment for 2025 has been to read books by authors of color, and it’s been a wonderful journey.

I learned about this book from an episode of “Asian American, the Ken Fong podcast”, a discussion with Regina Linke, a Taiwanese American artist, who blended traditional ink and wash techniques with digital painting for her illustrations.

I’ve read a lot of books about the Japanese American incarceration during World War II (see my previous posts), but this was a unique story about a family whose Nisei (2nd generation) daughter had meningitis when she was five, resulting in a mental disability (autism?) then became a ward of the state of California when her family was evacuated and incarcerated by the U.S. government. Family members never talked about her and they assumed she was dead, but in 2018, her nephew, David Mas Masumoto, was contacted by a social worker who read the obituary of Masumoto’s mother and recognized that a resident in their institution had the same last name as his mother’s maiden name.

Masumoto’s beautiful writing blends poetry, history, and ponderings about his aunt’s life during those many decades of separation. The woodblock prints by Patricia Wakida introducing each chapter provide evocative illustrations of the peach and grape farm

Jeff Chu embodies the unique combination of being Chinese American, a person of faith, a professional journalist/writer and gay to tell this compelling and important book asking the question, “Does Jesus Really Love Me? A Gay Christian’s Pilgrimage in Search of God in America”. Chu chronicles his cross-country journey to understand Christianity in America and their stance on homosexuality.

Chu’s analysis and description of churches and denominations could be included in any Church History or Contemporary Theology class. Clearly, he earned the trust of people he interviewed and tells their stories, as well as his own, with honesty, humor and heartbreaking detail.