multicultural

T Kira Madden's debut memoir in essays is brutal in the best way: gorgeously written, relentlessly honest, and impossible to put down. If you're into stories about daughters who love and struggle with imperfect parents, read this. If you relate to families filled with dysfunction, read this. If you love someone who is queer, read this. If you have a soft spot for essays that make you cry at work, read this. Seriously--I could find a reason for everyone to read this book. Been touched somehow by adoption? By trauma? By being a lost teenager? By having to leave home to find it again? This book

Endgame, with Rico Rodriquez from Modern Family, is a make-you-feel-good movie inspired by true events. This independent film was shot in only nineteen days, and the children could work, at most, six hours per day. Other actors include Efron Ramiez, who played Pedro in Napoleon Dynamite, and Jon Greis, also from Napoleon Dynamite.

Jose, played by Rico Rodriquez, has a knack for chess, having played with his grandmother since he was five years old. Jose’s older brother, Miguel, is just as good at soccer as Jose is at chess, but their mother, Karla, only acknowledges Miguel’s abilities

The movie The Hundred-foot Journey begins in India where an Indian family that loves cooking has a family restaurant. Touched by tragedy during a fire in their restaurant, the head of the family decides they should move to a new country. After some trial and error in finding just the right spot, they come to a lovely village in the south of France and happen upon an empty restaurant for sale. The sale is made and they begin restoration, moving in with not one thought of the 3-star French restaurant across the road from them. Then begins the lovely story of the Indian young man and the French

This film is the perfect antidote to the evening news. Rather than dwelling on the grim or sensational, it magnifies the beauty of the quotidian as it follows a single day in the life of people all over the world. Not only visually stunning, it is also emotionally impacting to see the human race in all its variety and realize how different, and how very much the same, people can be.