Book Recommendations

Interested in learning more? AACC recommends adding the following books to your library.

Asian American identity, theology, stories, and history:

  • Grace Lee Boggs. The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century

  • Carlos Bulosan. Common Ground: Reimagining American History

  • Peter Cha, Steve Kang, and Helen Lee. Growing Healthy Asian American Churches

  • Iris Chang. The Chinese in America

  • Ki Joo Choi. Disciplined by Race

  • Hyun Kyung Chung. Struggle to Be the Sun Again: Introducing Asian Women's Theology

  • Nicole Chung. All You Can Ever Know

  • Diane C. Fujino. Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama

  • Cathy Park Hong. Minor Feelings

  • Jane Hong. Opening the Gates to Asia

  • Grace Ji-Sun Kim. Embracing the Other: The Transformative Spirit of Love

  • Grace Ji-Sun Kim. Invisible: Theology and the Experience of Asian American Women

  • Matthew D. Kim. Finding Our Voice: A Vision for Asian North American Preaching

  • Maxine Hong Kingston. China Men

  • Chang-Rae Lee. Native Speaker

  • Daniel Lee. Doing Asian American Theology

  • Erika Lee. America for Americans

  • Erika Lee. At America’s Gates

  • Erika Lee. The Making of Asian America: A History

  • Hak Joon Lee and Ken Fong. Intersecting Realities

  • Sang Hyun Lee. From a Liminal Place: An Asian American Theology

  • Daryl J. Maeda. Chains of Babylon: The Rise of Asian America

  • Mae Ngai. Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America

  • Mae Ngai. The Lucky Ones: One Family and the Extraordinary Invention of Chinese America

  • John Okada. No No Boy

  • Gary Okihiro. American History Unbound: Asians and Pacific Islanders

  • Gary Okihiro. Common Ground: Reimagining American History

  • Gary Okihiro. Margins and Mainstreams: Asians in American History and Culture

  • Gary Okihiro. Third World Studies

  • M. Sydney Park, Soong-Chan Rah, & Al Tizon. Honoring the Generations: Learning with Asian North American Congregations

  • Misa Sugiura. This Time Will Be Different

  • Ronald Takaki. A Different Mirror

  • Ronald Takaki. A Larger Memory

  • Ronald Takaki. Strangers from a Different Shore

  • Jonathan Y. Tan. Introducing Asian American Theologies

  • Nikki Toyama and Tracey Gee. More Than Serving Tea: Asian American Women on Expectations, Relationships, Leadership and Faith

  • Cathy J. Schlund-Vials, Linda Trinh-Vo, and K. Scott Wong. Keywords for Asian American Studies

  • Ellen D. Wu. The Color of Success: Asian Americans and the Origins of the Model Minority

  • Frank Wu. Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White 

  • Karen Tei Yamashita. I Hotel

  • Gene Luen Yang. American Born Chinese

  • Helen Zia. Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People

Asian American Novels

  • Mia Alvar. In the Country

  • Frances Cha. If I Had Your Face

  • Eileen Chang. Love in a Fallen City

  • Te-Ping Chen. Land of Big Numbers

  • YZ Chin. Edge Case

  • Avni Doshi. Burnt Sugar

  • Alex Gilvarry. From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant

  • Kazuo Ishiguro. Klara and the Sun

  • Jhumpa Lahiri. Whereabouts

  • Chang-Rae Lee. My Year Abroad

  • Min Jin Lee. Pachinko

  • Tao Lin. Taipei

  • Ken Liu. The Paper Menagerie

  • Mieko Kawakami. Heaven

  • Megha Majumdar. A Burning

  • Haruki Murakami. Norwegian Wood

  • Celeste Ng. Little Fires Everywhere

  • Viet Thanh Nguyen. The Refugees

  • Viet Thanh Nguyen. The Sympathizer

  • Grace Talusan. The Body Papers

  • Amy Tan. Joy Luck Club

  • John Kuo Wei Tchen and Dylan Yeats. Yellow Peril!

  • Jia Tolentino. Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion

  • Ocean Vuong. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

  • Ocean Vuong. Time is a Mother

  • Qian Julie Wang. Beautiful Country

  • Charles Yu. Interior Chinatown

  • Michelle Zauner. Crying in H Mart

  • C Pam Zhang. How Much of These Hills Is Gold

Racial Reconciliation, Justice, and Unity

  • W.E.B. Du Bois. The Souls of Black Folk

  • Eddie Glaude Jr. Begin Again

  • Ibram X. Kendi. How to Be an Antiracist

  • Ibram X. Kendi. Stamped From the Beginning

  • Martin Luther King Jr. Where Do We Go From Here?

  • Martin Luther King Jr. Why We Can’t Wait

  • Martin Luther King Jr. Strength To Love

  • Toni Morrison. The Origin of Others

  • Khalil Gibran Muhammad. The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America

  • Ijeoma Oluo. So You Want to Talk About Race

  • Richard Rothstein. The Color of Law: A Forgotten History

  • Bryan Stevenson. Just Mercy

  • Beverly Tatum. Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting together in the cafeteria

  • Isabel Wilkerson. Caste.

  • Isabel Wilkerson. The Warmth Of Other Suns

Church

Conversations around faith and race are critical in our discipleship as pastors, leaders, adults, and children. Below are several resources that AACC recommends in order to begin and continue this important journey of learning to align ourselves with the principles and practices of the Kingdom of God. Please feel free to adapt some of the resources to your particular church or ministry context.

  • Christina Cleveland. Disunity in Christ: Uncovering the Hidden Forces that Keep Us Apart

  • Christina Edmonson & Chad Brennan. Faithful Anti-Racism

  • Curtiss Paul DeYoung, Michael O. Emerson, George Yancey, & Karen Chai Kim. United by Faith, The Multiracial Congregation As an Answer to the Problem of Race 

  • Derwin Gray. How to Heal Our Racial Divide

  • Graham Hill and Grace Ji-Sun Kim. Healing Our Broken Humanity: Practices for Revitalizing the Church and Renewing the World

  • Alexander Jun. White Out: Understanding White Privilege and Dominance in the Modern Age 

  • Kathy Khang. Raise Your Voice: Why We Stay Silent and How to Speak Up

  • Eric Law. The Wolf Shall Dwell with the Lamb: A Spirituality for Leadership in a Multicultural Community

  • Jeff Liou & Robert Chao Romero. Christianity and Critical Race Theory

  • Esau McCaulley. Reading While Black

  • Latasha Morrison. Be the Bridge

  • Brenda Salter McNeil & Rick Richardson. The Heart of Racial Justice

  • Doug Serven. Heal Us, Emmanuel: A Call for Racial Reconciliation, Representation, and Unity in the Church

  • Nayan Shah. Title: Contagious Divides: Epidemics and Race in San Francisco’s Chinatown

  • Nico Slate. Colored Cosmopolitanism: The Shared Struggle for Freedom in the United States and India

  • Christian Smith & Michael O. Emerson. Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America

  • Jemar Tisby. Color of Compromise

  • Jemar Tisby. How to Fight Racism

  • Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes. I Bring the Voices of Our People

  • Charmaine L. Wijeyesinghe & Bailey W. Jackson. New Perspectives on Racial Identity Development