Friday, April 15, 2011

China Rican book requests

I'd like to walk you through a conversation between Boyfriend and I that took place while we were wandering around NYC this past March.

Boyfriend: What are all these signs for "her-story" for?
Me: It's Women's History month.
Boyfriend: What? It is? Black History month then Women's History month? Everyone gets their own month. Where's my month?
Me: Whiny boy month? Isn't that every month?
Boyfriend: Shut up, we need a China Rican month!
Me: So, is that studying the history of your family? I don't know if you're going to get a huge groundswell of followers for that.
Boyfriend: It's exclusive.

Admittedly he has a bit of a point. I can't say my Chinese history knowledge is super keen and my Puerto Rican history is even worse. I don't plan on picking up any history books to fill in the gaps, at least not at the moment, but I am willing to do something to support his fake history month. Now I don't expect to find any China Rican authors but I figure I'll read books about each half. So now I need to fill my literary deficiency and I'm hoping you guys can help.  Does anyone have any recommendations for books written by Chinese or Puerto Rican authors or else about China or Puerto Rico?

I own The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan.  I realize she's Chinese-American so it only kind of counts but I already have it so I'm going to re-read it for this little mini-challenge. I found a memoir called When I Was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago, which is about her growing up in rural Puerto Rico and then later moving to NYC. So both of the books are split between China/Puerto Rico and the US. At least there's a theme there. And Pete from What You Read recommended Ma Jian's Bejing Coma so that's another for me to be on the lookout for.

So if anyone has any recommendations, please send them my way because I'm really at a loss.  And if anyone would like to join me in this, Boyfriend has declared June as China-Rican month because he likes warms weather. Is there more that usually goes into deciding on a  [blank] history month?