Sponsored by Sabreet Kang Rajeev.
Two pants. Two T-shirts. The socks and shoes he wore. His life savings of one thousand dollars. That is what Sukhvir brought to America at the age of twenty-three. Together, he and his wife started from nothing. They struggled in blue-collar jobs and poured their souls into two American-born children. They were Generation Zero. There is a great deal of beauty and strength to come from an immigrant family. Maybe your working-class family sacrificed. Maybe you’re living a hyphenated identity, trying to make sense of the unique experiences that make you American. You are not alone.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! This is a day in Chicago when I typically barricade myself inside my apartment, or wade through the hoard of revelers and hole up at the library. But now it’s just another day in quarantine, albeit with new books to get excited about. Which is neat.
Sidelined: Sports, Culture, and Being a Woman in America by Julie DiCaro
Called “the feminist sports book we’ve all been waiting for” by Jessica Valenti, this goes from the minimizing of and condescension towards women’s sports to “athletes who abuse their partners and face only minimal consequences” (see: Hope Solo). DiCaro is a sports journalist and covers the sexist online environment of Barstool Sports, the horrifically racist treatment of Serena Williams, and the fight for equal pay. I do not really get into sports, but this looks really good.
How Rights Went Wrong: Why Our Obsession with Rights Is Tearing America Apart by Jamal Greene
Greene, a constitutional law expert at Columbia, writes about how we can build a better system of justice, ridding ourselves of our current system of legal absolutism and “how we can recover America’s original vision of rights, while updating them to confront the challenges of the twenty-first century.”
Hot, Hot Chicken: A Nashville Story by Rachel Louise Martin
Hot chicken or “Nashville style” has become popular worldwide, but its roots belong in Nashville’s Black communities, where it goes back 70 years. Martin tells the story of this dish, and of Nashville’s Black history, “from the Civil War, when Nashville became a segregated city, through the tornado that ripped through North Nashville in March 2020.” This feels like a good counterbalance to Netflix’s Marriage or Mortgage, which is doing crap like showing potential brides a former Nashville plantation as a wedding locale.
Dear Black Girl: Letters From Your Sisters on Stepping Into Your Power by Tamara Winfrey-Harris
Winfrey-Harris created the Letters to Black Girls project, where she asked Black women to write letters of hope and support to teenaged and young adult Black girls. Topics covered include identity, self-love, parents, violence, grief, mental health, sex, and sexuality. This selection of letters provides “a balm for the wounds of anti-black-girlness and modeling how black women can nurture future generations.”
For more nonfiction new releases, check out the For Real podcast which I co-host with the excellent Kim here at Book Riot. If you have any questions/comments/book suggestions, you can find me on social media @itsalicetime. Until next time, enjoy those facts, fellow nerds.