Carmen Rita Wong

In honor of Arab American Heritage Month in April, we are sharing books by Arab and Arab American authors that share their culture, history, and personal lives.

For National Poetry Month in April, we are sharing poetry collections and books about poetry by authors who have their own stories to tell. These poets delve into history, reimagine the present, examine poetry itself—from traditional poems many know and love to poems and voices that are new and original.

In her memoir, Why Didn’t You Tell Me?, Carmen Rita Wong contends with questions of culture, race, family, and belonging, from the Harlem and Chinatown of her childhood to the almost exclusively white playgrounds of New Hampshire following her mother’s remarriage. Following Carmen from her coming of age through adulthood, when her mother’s long-held secrets