I Was Their American Dream: A Graphic Memoir

"Drawing comics with characters of diverse races is a fraught task. It’s supremely difficult to make race visible without reinscribing stereotypes, so Malaka Gharib’s strategy is usually to not draw race at all. In her pages, a Korean American looks pretty much the same as a white person. Not that Gharib thinks everyone’s all alike – quite the opposite. She argues that it’s not color, but culture that makes a person. Gharib fills her book with the things that do matter: the beliefs, values, food, music and experiences that make an Egyptian Filipino American (and NPR editor) who she is."