What's the Name of That Book??? discussion

I read this book in college...at UW Madison in the mid 90s. It was about a first generation young Asian man man with his Asian parents in America. I (think) it had "Bones" in the title. A very good book. I remember it being part Autobiography and part poetry.

I would check out Listopias tagged "asian memoir" -

https://www.goodreads.com/search?utf8...

Asian American Books
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/2...

Perhaps America Is in the Heart: A Personal History? "First published in 1946, this autobiography of the well-known Filipino poet describes his boyhood in the Philippines, his voyage to America, and his years of hardship and despair as an itinerant laborer following the harvest trail in the rural West."

Thanks, but I don't think that's it. :)

So the young man was first generation Asian American...that rules out Eric Liu. And you can't pinpoint whether he was Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, or something else. (But you know it's East Asia so we can rule out Indians.)

Any idea if the book was recent when you read it, or if it was from some previous decade? Did the events in it take place in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s? Or even earlier? Was he a published/professional poet - apart from this one book? Was it a memoir, in the first person?

It was the mid 90's and required reading for the class at UW Madison. Thanks for your help, though. I'll keep researching. :)

Perhaps your professor from the class would remember? Even if he or she is retired, the department secretary usually can reach former professors.

Something by Justin Chin? He seems to be a gay Asian-American poet and memoirist. The books that would fit in your time frame are

Mongrel: Essays, Diatribes, + Pranks
Bite Hard

Okay...I figured it out and had it all wrong. The book of poems was called "Rose Poems by Li-Young Lee. The book I read about a Japanese American was written by a woman. Cynthia Kadohata...and it's a novel, called The Floating World. :) Thanks for all your help. :)