Books and Films on Topics of Diversity
If You Haven’t Lived It, Learn About It!
One way to learn about people who are different from yourself is to explore the vast array of human experiences through books, films, and videos. Check out the following lists of books and films, and websites as a way to increase your cultural competence. These lists represent a sample of options available to you
do your own exploration and stay up on current releases to keep your cultural competence continually developing.
BOOKS
African American Experience
Mumia Abu-Jamal Live From Death Row
Maya AngelouAnd Still I Rise
James Baldwin Notes of a Native Son
Derrick Bell Faces at the Bottom of the Well
Gwendolyn Brooks The Bean Eaters
Bebe Moore Campbell Your Blue Eyes Ain’t Like Mine
Abraham Chapman Black Voices: An Anthology of African American Literature
Eldridge Cleaver Soul on Ice
Angela Davis Women, Race and Class
Frederick Douglass My Bondage and My Freedom
W.E.B. Du Bois The Souls of Black Folk
Ralph Ellison Invisible Man
Lorraine Hansberry A Raisin in the Sun
Robert Hemenway Zora Neale Hurston
Billie Holiday Lady Sing the Blues
bell hooks Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism
Zora Neale Hurston Jonah’s Gourd Vine
Langston Hughes General Works
Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Edward Jones The Known World
Jamaica Kincaid Annie John
Alex Kotlowitz There Are No Children Here
Audre Lorde Zami: A New Spelling of My Name
Paule Marshall Brown Girl, Brown Stones
Nathan McCall Makes Me Wanna Holler
Toni Morrison Tar Baby
Gloria Naylor The Women of Brewster Place
Kesho Scott The Habit of Surviving
Ntozake Shange For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf
Rebecca Skloot The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Taigi Smith Sometimes Rhythm, Sometimes Blues: Young African Americans on Love, Relationships, Sex, and the Search for Mr. Right
Barbara Smith Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology
Kathryn Stockett The Help
Ronald Suskind A Hope in the Unseen
Alice Walker In Search of Her Mother’s Garden
Richard Wright Uncle Tom’s Children
Malcolm X The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Asian American/Pacific Islander Experience
Asian Women United Making Waves: An Anthology
Peter Bacho Cebu
Carlos Bulosan America Is in the Heart
Marilyn Chin Dwarf Bamboo
Kiana Davenport Song of the Exile
Shusaku Endo Silence
David Guterson Snow Falling on Cedars
Jessica Hagedorn Gangster of Love
Maxine Hong Kingston The Woman Warrior
Yuji Ichioka The Issei
Gish Jen Chinese American, Typical American
Richard E. Kim Last Names
Lilikala Kamaelehiwa Native Land, Native Rights
Akemi Kikumura Through Harsh Winters
Joy Kogawa Obason
Li-Yong Lee The City in Which I Love You
R. Zamora Linmark Rolling the R’s
Jeffrey A. McNeely and Paul S. Sochaczewski Soul of the Tiger
Bharati Mukherjee Darkness
David Mura Turning Japanese
Milton Murayama All I’m Asking for Is My Body
Henry Nalaielua No Footprints in the Sand: A Memoir of Kalaupapa
Vickie Nam YELL-Oh Girls!
Gary Y. Okihiro Cane Fires
Chang Rae Lee Native Speaker
Kim Ronyoung Clay Walls
Sonia Shah (ed.) Dragon Ladies Breathe Fire
Monica Sone Nisei Daughter
Paul Spickard Japanese Americans: The Formation and Tranformations of an Ethnic Group
Rabindranath Tagore Gitanjali
Ronald Takaki Strangers From A Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans
Amy Tan The Kitchen God’s Wife
Haunani-Kay Trask From a Native Daughter
Kathleen Tyau Makai
V.S. Naipaul India: A Million Mutinies
Jeanne Wakatsuki Houseon and James Houston Farewell to Manzanar
Shawn Wong American Knees
Chicano/Latino Experience
Adalberto Joel Acosta From Common Clay
Miguel Algarin Time Is Now
Isabel Allende The Stories of Eva Luna
Gloria Anzaldua Borderlands/La Frontera
Toni Cade Bambara Gorilla, My Love
Nash Candelaria Inheritance of Strangers
Ana Castillo So Far from God
Sandra Cisneros The House on Mango Street
Angela De Hoyos Woman, Woman
Richard Delgado & Jean Stefancic The Latino/a Condition
Buchi Emecheta Second Class Citizen
Carlos Fuentes The Old Gringo
Alma Gomez, Cherrie Moraga, and Mariana Romo-Carmona Cuentos: Stories by Latinas
Oscar Hijuelos The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love
Graciela Limon Memories of Ana Calderon
Gabriel Garcia Marquez 100 Years of Solitude
Rigoberta Menchu I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala
Nicholosa Mohr El Bronx Remembered
Michelle Herrera Mulligan and Robyn Moreno Border-line Personalities: A New Generation of Latinas Dish on Sex, Sass, and Cultural Shifting
Alejandro Moralea Barrio on the Edge
Sonia Nazario Enrique’s Journey
Octavio Paz Collected Poems of Octavio Paz
Alvina Quintana Home Girls: Chicana Literary Voices
Alberto Rios Five Indiscretions: A Book of Poems
Luis Rodriguez Always Running: LA Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A.
Richard Rodriguez Days of Obligation: An Argument with My Mexican Father
Richard Rodriguez Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez
Piri Thomas Down These Mean Streets
Luis Alberto Urrea The Devil’s Highway: A True Story
Evangelina Vigil Woman of Her Word: Hispanic Women Write
Marcia Yarmus The Hispanic World of John Steinbeck
Middle-Eastern and Muslim American Experience
Barbara Aswad Family and Gender Among American Muslims: Issues Facing Middle Eastern Immigrants And Their Descendants
Anny Bakalian & Medhi BozorgmehrBacklash 9/11: Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans Respond
Sandra Donovan The MiddleEastern American Experience
Dave Eggers Zeitoun
Holly Hill & Dina AminSalaam. Peace: An Anthology of Middle Eastern-American Drama
Greg MortensonThree Cups of Tea
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Experiences
James Baldwin Giovanni’s Room
Evelyn Torton Beck Nice Jewish Girls: A Lesbian Anthology
Kate Bornstein Gender Outlaw
Rita Mae Brown Rubyfruit Jungle
Georgia Cotrell Shoulders
Martin Duberman Stonewall
Larry Duplechan Blackbird
Lilian Faderman Chloe Plus Olivia
Leslie Feinberg Stone Butch Blues
E.M. Forster Maurice
Aaron Fricke Reflections of a Rock Lobster
Judy Grahn Another Mother Tongue
James Earl Hardy B-Boy Blues
E. Lynn Harris Invisible Life
Kevin Jennings Becoming Visible: A Reader in Gay and Lesbian History for High School and College Students
June Jordan Some of Us Did Not Die: Selected Essays of June Jordan
Moisés Kaufman The Laramie Project
Jackie Kay Trumpet
Jamaica Kincaid Lucy
Tony Kushner Angels in America
David Leavitt The Lost Language of Cranes
Audre Lorde Sister Outsider
Armistead Maupin Tales of the City (series)
Eric Marcus Is It a Choice?
Diane Middlebrook Suits Me: The Double Life of Billy Tipton
Paul Monette Becoming a Man
Claire Morgan The Price of Salt
Joan Nestle A Restricted Country
Leslea Newman A Letter to Harvey Milk
Suzanne Pharr Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism
Richard Plant The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War Against Homosexuals
Tom Robbins Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
Sarah Schulman People in Trouble
Carla Trujillo Chicana Lesbians: The Girls Our Mothers Warned Us About
Patricia Nell Warren The Front Runner
Bett Williams Girl Walking Backwards
Virginia Woolf Orlando
Native American Experience
Gretchen Bataille American Indian Women: Telling Their Lives
Nicholas Black Elk Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux
Forrest Carter The Education of Little Tree
Jaye T. Darby & Stephanie Fitzgerald Keepers of the Morning Star: An Anthology of Native Women’s Theater
Joy Harjo She Had Some Horses
David Jones Sanapia: Comanche Medicine Woman
Barbara Kingsolver The Bean Trees
Jacquelyn Kilpatrick Celluloid Indians: Native Americans and Film
Nancy O. Lurie Mountain-Wolf Woman, Sister of Crashing Thunder
Kathleen Mullen Sands Telling Their Lives
John Neihardt Black Elk Speaks
Kent Nerburn Neither Wolf Nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder
Alfonso Ortiz The Tewa World
Vicki Rozema Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation
Leslie Silko Ceremony
Irene Stewart A Navajo Woman’s Own Story
Mary Tall Mountain A Quick Brush of Wings
Multicultural and Cross-Cultural Experience
Elenore Smith Bowen Return to Laughter
Jimmy Santiago Baca Black Mesa Poems
G. Reginald Daniels More Than Black?: Multiracial Identity and the New Racial Order
Daniela Gioseffi On Prejudice
Frank McCourt Angela’s Ashes
Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color
Adrienne Rich Dark Fields of the Republic
Ella Shohat Talking Visions: Multicultural Feminism in a Transnational Age
Alan Archer Stephens White River Poems
Ronald Takaki A History of Multicultural America
Ronald Takaki A Larger Memory: A History of Our Diversity, With Voices
Robert W. Terry For Whites Only
MitsuyeYamada Sowing Ti Leaves: Writings by Multicultural Women
Experiences With Religion and Spirituality
Yekeda Amichai A Life of Poetry
Anne Frank Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
Elizabeth Gilbert Eat Pray Love
Carlo Ginzburg The Cheese and the Worms
Stanford Lyman Essential Readings on Jewish Identities, Lifestyles and Beliefs
Bernard Malamud The Assistant
Robert Nash Spirituality, Ethics, Religion, and Teaching: A Professor’s Journey
Kent Nerburn The Wisdom of Native Americans
Chaim Potok The Chosen
Sogyah Rinpoche The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
Henry Roth Call it Sleep
Susan Fromberg Schaeffer Anya
Paul S. Seaver Wallington’s World: A Puritan Artisan in Seventeenth-Century London
Isaac Bashevis Singer Shosha
Huston Smith The World’s Religion
Paul Spickard The Global History of Christians
Leon Uris Exodus
Brian Weiss Many Lives, Many Masters
Elie Wiesel Night
Herman Wouk Inside, Outside: A Novel
Anzia Yezierska Bread Givers
Women’s Experience
Dorothy Allison Bastard out of Carolina
Margaret Atwood The Handmaid’s Tale
Tracy Chevalier Girl with a Pearl Earring
Lucille Clifton Quilting: Poems 1987–1990
Johnnetta Cole All-American Women: Lines That Divide, Ties That Bind
Mary Daly Gyn/Ecology
Nawal El Sadawi Woman at Point Zero
Cynthia Enloe Bananas, Beaches & Bases
Eve Ensler The Vagina Monologues
Susan Faludi Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women
Marilyn French The Women’s Room
Betty Friedan The Feminine Mystique
Pamela Church Gibson and Roma Gibson Dirty Looks: Women, Pornography, Power
Mary Gordon Final Payments
Jessica Hagedorn Dogeaters
Zora Neale Hurston Their Eyes Were Watching God
Jamaica Kincaid Annie John
Maxine Hong Kingston The Woman Warrior
Noretta Koetge Valley of the Amazons
Doris Lessing The Golden Notebook
Grace Metalious Peyton Place
Chandra Mohanty, Anna Russo, and Lourdes Torres Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism
Anne Moody Coming of Age in Mississippi
Cherrie Moraga Loving in the War Years
Toni Morrison The Bluest Eye
Marge Piercy Woman on the Edge of Time
Janice Radway Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature
Ann Snitow, Christine Stansell, and Sharon Thompson Powers of Desire
Patrick White The Cockatoos
Patricia Williams The Alchemy of Race and Rights
Naomi Wolf The Beauty Myth
Cathy Young Ceasefire!
Men’s Experience
Much of American literature features novels about the male experience
the following readings provide a more analytical look at gender and male identity.
Gary Brooks A New Psychotherapy for Traditional Men
Susan Faludi Stiffed
Richard Hawley Boys Will Be Men
Jackson Katz Why Men Hurt Women
Jackson Katz More Than a Few Good Men
Sam Keen Fire in the Belly
Paul Kivel Boys Will be Men
Paul Kivel Men’s Work: How to Stop the Violence That Tears Our Lives Apart
Ronald Levant Masculinity Reconstructed
Ronald Levant and William S. Pollack A New Psychology of Men
Robert L. Moore and Douglas Gillette King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine
Sam Osherson Wrestling with Love
William Pollack Real Boys: Rescuing Our Boys from the Myths of Boyhood
Terrence Real I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression
Gail Sheehy Understanding Men’s PassagesLionel Tiger The Decline of Males
Norah Vincent Self Made Man
Bernie Zilbergeld The New Male Sexuality
Caucasian Experience
Much of American literature features novels about the Caucasian experience
the following readings provide a more analytical look at racial identity.
Chris Crass Beyond the Whiteness: Essays on Grassroots Anti-Racist Organizing
Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic Critical White Studies: Looking Behind the Mirror
Allan Johnson Privilege, Power and Difference
Paul Kivel Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice
George Lipsitz The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics
Paula Rothenberg White Privilege: Essential Readings on the Other Side of Racism
Becky Thompson A Promise and a Way of Life: White Anti-Racist Activism
Cooper Thompson, Emmett Schaefer, and Harry Brod White Men Challenging Racism: 35 Personal Stories
FILMS & VIDEOS
The Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert
After Stonewall
Akeelah and the Bee
America in Black and White
American History X
American Me
American Violet
Amistad
And the Band Played On
Angels in America
Antwone Fisher
Au Revoir Les Enfants
Avalon
The Accused
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pitman
Barber Shop (parts I & II)
Bar Girls
Beautiful Things
Before Stonewall
Bend it Like Beckham
Better Than Chocolate
Big Eden
Black Orpheus
Blue
Born into Brothels
Born on the Fourth of July
Bound
Boys Don’t Cry
Boys on the Side
Boyz N’ the Hood
The Brandon Teena Story
Brokeback Mountain
Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin
Brown Sugar
The Celluloid Closet
Charlotte Sometimes
Chasing Amy
Chicks in White Satin
Children of a Lesser God
The Chosen
Close to Eden
Chutney Popcorn
A Class Divided
The Color of Fear
The Color Purple
Come Back, Africa
Come See the Paradise
Common Ground
Crash
Crimes of Passion
Cry Freedom
The Crying Game
Dances with Wolves
Daughters of the Dust
A Day Without a Mexican
Dead Poets Society
De Colores: Lesbianand Gay Latinos
Defending Your Life
Dim Sum
Do the Right Thing
Double Happiness
Driving Miss Daisy
A Dry White Season
The Education of Little Tree
El Mariachi
El Norte
Empire of the Sun
Entre Nous
Europa Europa
The Express
Eyes on the Prize (parts I and II)
Female Misbehavior
Fools Rush In
Frida
Fried Green Tomatoes
The Fringe Dwellers
Freedom Writers
Front of the Class
Further Tales of the City
Gandhi
The Garden of Finzi-Continis
Get on the Bus
Girl Interrupted
Glory
Gran Torino
Grand Canyon
The Great Debaters
Guess Who?
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
Hedwig and The Angry Inch
Higher Learning
Hiroshima, Mon Amour
Hollywood Shuffle
Hoop Dreams
Hotel Rwanda
The House of Sand and Fog
How Stella Got Her Groove Back
I Exist: Voices from the Lesbian and Gay Middle Eastern Community in the U.S.
Ikiru
Imitation of Life
If These Walls Could Talk (parts I and II)
In America
The Incredibly True Adventures of 2 Girls In Love
In the Flies of Butterflies
In the Heat of the Night
Inside Moves
Iron-Jawed Angels
Iron Ladies
Jeffrey
John Q.
The Joy Luck Club
Jungle Fever
Kissing Jessica Stein
The Kite Runner
La Bamba
The Laramie Project
The Last Emperor
The Last Samurai
Latin and African Americans: Friends or Foes?
Leaving Normal
The Life and Times of Harvey Milk
Like Water for Chocolate
Lillies of the Field
Little Big Man
Live Nude Girls
To Live
Longtime Companion
Long Walk Home
Los Olvidados
The Lost Language of Cranes
Love and Basketball
Love! Valour! Compassion!
Lunch Date
Madame Butterfly
Malcolm X
The Mambo Kings
Mandela
Maurice
Ma Vie en Rose (My Life in Pink)
Menace II Society
The Milagro Beanfield War
Milk
Mississippi Masala
Mi Vida Loca
Monster’s Ball
More Tales of the City
My Family (Mi Familia)
My Left Foot
Native Sun
New Jack City
North Country
The Official Story
Once Upon a Time…When We Were Colored
Once We Were Warriors
One Potato, Two Potato
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
Orlando
Out at Work
Panther
Paper Clips
Paris is Burning
Parting Glances
Passion Fish
A Patch of Blue
Personal Best
Philadelphia
The Piano
Picture Bride
The Power of Myth
Priest
The Pursuit of Happyness
A Question of Love
Question of Silence
Ragtime
Rainman
Raise the Red Lantern
Real Women Have Curves
Red Sorghum
Remember the Titans
The Road to Freedom: The Vernon Johns Story
Roots
Salaam Bombay
Salvador
Sankofa
The Scent of Green Papaya
Schindler’s List
School Ties
The Secret Life of Bees
Sense and Sensibility
Separate But Equal
Shall We Dance (Japanese Version)
Shoah
Show Me Love
Sizwe Bansi Is Dead
Slumdog Millionaire
Smoke Signals
A Soldier’s Story