This Family Tree with its tangled roots and strong, sturdy trunk blossoms out to encompass a full splendor of branches, leaves, and twigs. It stands in a meadow full of life experiences with its rocks of hardships and flowering with beautiful memories. Surrounded by a grove of friendships and acquaintances that have protected and assisted in its life, it stands in its ever-growing majestic splendor reaching towards God’s heaven and eternal life.
Pulitzer Prize–winning author and “one of our most talented biographers and historians” (The New York Times) David Maraniss delivers a “thoughtful, poignant, and historically valuable story of the Red Scare of the 1950s” (The Wall Street Journal) through the chilling yet affirming story of his family’s ordeal, from blacklisting to vindication. Elliott Maraniss, David’s father, a WWII veteran who had commanded an all-black company in the Pacific, was spied on by the FBI, named as a communist by an informant, called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952, fired from his newspaper job, and blacklisted for five years. Yet he never lost faith in America and emerged on the other side with his family and optimism intact. In a sweeping drama that moves from the Depression and Spanish Civil War to the HUAC hearings and end of the McCarthy era, Maraniss weaves his father’s story through the lives of his inquisitors and defenders as they struggle with the vital 20th-century issues of race, fascism, communism, and first amendment freedoms. “Remarkably balanced, forthright, and unwavering in its search for the truth” (The New York Times), A Good American Family evokes the political dysfunctions of the 1950s while underscoring what it really means to be an American. It is “clear-eyed and empathetic” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) tribute from a brilliant writer to his father and the family he protected in dangerous times.
Khan electrified viewers around the world when he took the stage at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. When he offered to lend Donald Trump his own much-read and dog-eared pocket Constitution, his gesture perfectly encapsulated the feelings of millions. The oldest of ten children born to farmers in Pakistan, Khan was a university student who read the Declaration of Independence and was awestruck by what might be possible in life. He and his wife instilled in their children the ideals that brought to America, and then tragically lost a son, an Army captain killed while protecting his base camp in Iraq. Here Khan tells readers why we must not be afraid to step forward for what we believe in when it matters most.
The story of two gay men living in New Jersey who embark on a journey to adopt a child. The two men serve as Adam's foster parents and have cared for Adam since he was a newborn, afflicted with AIDS, and born addicted to crack, heroin, marijuana and alcohol. They took their fight to the New Jersey Courts and won.
My Italian American Family, Rural Taiwan and Lawndale News Memoirs are a combined set of memoirs. The first deals with Mr. Nardinis family and their personal history as well as the authors life growing up. The second deals with his three and a half years living on a farm in Taiwan and what rural life was like during the time the author lived in the rural Taiwanese countryside. The third memoir is about Mr. Nardinis twenty years working for Lawndale Newsa bilingual Latino newspaper in English and Spanish located in Cicero, Illinois.
Believing that the last book his grandfather ever read, the one he was buried with, was Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Gildner reflects on his relationship to literature and writing and how that is related to his roots as a Slovakian. Much of his reflection takes place in the context of travels through Eastern Europe and the United States, as well as his relationship with family members past and present. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
This is the first book to provide readers with an overall understanding of changing patterns in the extended and conjugal family relationships of the second largest ethnic minority group in the United States.
By most accounts Pete Likins has had a successful life. But his personal accomplishments are only the backdrop for the real story—the story of his family, whose trials and triumphs hold lessons for many American families in the twenty-first century. This poignant but ultimately empowering memoir tells the story of Peter Likins, his wife Patricia, and the six children they adopted in the 1960s, building a family beset by challenges that ultimately strengthened all bonds. With issues such as inter-racial adoption, mental illness, drug addiction, unwed pregnancy, and homosexuality entwined in their lives, the Likins’ tale isn’t just a family memoir—it’s a story of the American experience, a memoir with a message. With circumstances of race, age, and health making all of their children virtually unadoptable by 1960s standards, Pat and Pete never strayed from the belief that loyalty and love could build a strong family. Both Pete and Pat have served as teachers, and Pete’s long academic career—holding positions as a professor, dean, provost, and then president—illuminates more than just his personal success. Pete’s professional attainments produce a context for his family story, wherein high achievements in educational, athletic, and financial terms coexist with the joys and sorrows of this exceptional family.
