intercountry marriage

"A . . . candid memoir about a young woman's journey to understanding her complicated parents--her father a Vietnam veteran, her mother an Okinawan war bride--and her own, fraught cultural heritage. Elizabeth's mother was working as a nightclub hostess on U.S.-occupied Okinawa when she met the American soldier who would become her husband. The language barrier and power imbalance that defined their early relationship followed them to the predominantly white, upstate New York suburb where they moved to raise their only daughter. There, Elizabeth grew up with the trappings of a typical American childhood and adolescence. Yet, even though she felt almost no connection to her mother's distant home, she also felt out of place among her peers. Decades later, Elizabeth comes to recognize the shame and self-loathing that haunt both her and her mother, and attempts a form of reconciliation, not only to come to terms with the embattled dynamics of her family but also to reckon with the injustices that reverberate throughout the history of Okinawa and its people"--Provided by publisher.

While visiting Paris in 1927, Aimee, a wealthy American, falls in love with Heinrich, a charming, yet penniless Baltic aristocrat. They marry, but life in 1930s Germany is bleak. Two years into World War II, Heinrich volunteers for the Russian front. Left to fend for herself in a country at war with her homeland, Aimee gathers up her children and flees the advancing Russian army on an epic journey to the country she thought she left behind. Her daughter, Sigrid, tells the story of her mother's life, as well as her own.

Debra Johanyak, an American woman with dual citizenship, describes her experiences when the American Embassy in Tehran was taken over by militants in 1979.