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I Was Their American Dream: A Graphic Memoir (Clarkson Potter Publishers)
One part Mari Andrew, one part Marjane Satrapi, I Was Their American Dream: A Graphic Memoir is a triumphant tale of self-discovery, a celebration of a family's rich heritage, and a love letter to American immigrant freedom. Malaka Gharib's illustrations come alive with teenage antics and earnest questions about identity and culture, while providing thoughtful insight into the lives of modern immigrants and the generation of millennial children they raised.
Malaka's upbringing will look familiar to anyone who grew up in the pre-internet era, but her particular story is a heartfelt tribute to the American immigrants who have invested their future in the promise of the American dream. The daughter of parents with unfulfilled dream s themselves, Malaka navigates her childhood chasing her parents' ideals, learning to code-switch between her family's Filipino and Egyptian customs, adapting to white culture to fit in, crushing on skater boys, and trying to understand the tension between holding onto cultural values and trying to be an all-American kid.
I Was Their American Dream is at once a journal of growing up and a reminder of the thousands of immigrants who come to America in search for a better life for themselves and their children.
Malaka Gharib is an artist, journalist, and writer based in Washington, D.C. She is the founder of The Runcible Spoon, a food zine, and the co-founder of the D.C. Art Book Fair. Malaka is also deputy editor and digital strategist of Goats and Soda, NPR's global health and development blog. She reports on topics such as the humanitarian aid sector, gender equality, and innovation in the developing world. Malaka lives in a row house with her husband Darren and her 9-year-old rice cooker.
Michael Nailat, aka Producer Mike, aka DJ waxstyles, has zero formal training in DJing or producing, but is somehow still allowed to do both. Born in the strawberry suburbs of Oxnard, California, and raised on a healthy diet of The Smashing Pumpkins and The Carpenters, Michael is one of a motley crew of astonishingly accomplished Filipinos that make up the This Filipino American Life Podcast (thisfilipinoamericanlife.com). By day he crunches data on homelessness for the United Way, by night he fixes computers for the Pilipino Workers Center in his current neighborhood of Historic Filipinotown, and in between all of that, he takes pictures. Lots of them. He also has a ton of records, laserdiscs, and vintage electronics, all to the dismay of his exponentially more interesting life partner and fellow TFAL Podcast host Elaine Dolalas.
