American Like Me by America Ferrera and other authors
(Format used for this read: Audiobook)
Listening to voices that our different from our own.
Hearing stories and experiences that we do not identify with personally.
Feeling empathy and care and tenderness for other human beings.
I feel like this is missing GREATLY in our nation right now.
I am trying so hard to listen more, especially to those with an “American” story that looks much different than my own.
Because their story is just as important.
Just as valuable.
Just as treasured.
Just as patriotic.
And we need to hear them and value them and respect them.
Desperately.
Here is a summary of the book:
“From award-winning actress and political activist America Ferrera comes a vibrant and varied collection of first-person accounts from prominent figures about the experience of growing up between cultures.
America Ferrera has always felt wholly American, and yet, her identity is inextricably linked to her parents’ homeland and Honduran culture. Speaking Spanish at home, having Saturday-morning-salsa-dance-parties in the kitchen, and eating tamales alongside apple pie at Christmas never seemed at odds with her American identity.
Still, she yearned to see that identity reflected in the larger American narrative.
Now, in American Like Me, America invites thirty-one of her friends, peers, and heroes to share their stories about life between cultures. We know them as actors, comedians, athletes, politicians, artists, and writers. However, they are also immigrants, children or grandchildren of immigrants, indigenous people, or people who otherwise grew up with deep and personal connections to more than one culture. Each of them struggled to establish a sense of self, find belonging, and feel seen. And they call themselves American enthusiastically, reluctantly, or not at all.
Ranging from the heartfelt to the hilarious, their stories shine a light on a quintessentially American experience and will appeal to anyone with a complicated relationship to family, culture, and growing up.”
I wish I could personally thank each and every one of the contributors to this book for opening up and sharing such heartfelt and personal stories.
I know it must be hard to do❤️
We need to hear more…and we have GOT to listen more.
Go pick this book up (or pop in your earbuds to listen) and take the time to hear from voices different than your own….
I hope you will let their words challenge what you think the “American experience” is or should be.
Maybe you will listen to this book and be able to closely identify with these stories and it will affirm and validate your own experience in America. If that is the case I hope it is such a fulfilling and healing read for you ❤️