Primary Sources—Elaine H. Kim's new memoir

Kaitlin Hsu / Make It Rain: Keep Kaya Press Thriving!

The only way to create a legacy for future generations is to acknowledge the ways we are connected to the past. Kaya is dedicated to preserving important, often overlooked, primary sources in the form of lost masterpieces by literary outsiders and personal narratives that shift our understanding of our histories and the worlds we live in today. 

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About Primary Sources—Elaine H. Kim's new memoir

In 2026, we will be publishing the long-awaited memoir of one of the founding scholars of Asian American and ethnic studies in the United States. Elaine H. Kim’s Asian American story didn’t begin with the 1965 Immigration Act—it began in a postwar American childhood marked by social isolation, where being Korean often meant being treated as a foreigner in your own home. Kim writes with honesty and humor about single motherhood, activism and the radical act of building community across differences. For anyone who has ever felt out of place—and still dreamed of somewhere better—this book is both a reckoning and a gift. It is a deeply compassionate collective invitation—to rethink belonging, justice, and to imagine a future shaped by us all.

Elaine Kim’s life serves as a powerful example of the kind of crucial, foundational history that is passing us by. Her memoir is our latest effort to preserve Asian American history by publishing stories before they are not lost. Other essential texts we’ve published through this initiative are:

  • The pioneering works of H.T. Tsiang: The Hanging on Union Square and And China Has Hands.

  • The essential account, Song of Arirang: The Story of A Korean Revolutionary in China, by Kim San and Nym Wales (Helen Foster Snow).

  •  Q.M. Zhang's acclaimed hybrid memoir, Accomplice to Memory.

  •  In Search of Hiroshi: A Japanese American Odyssey by Gene Oishi, which we successfully published just before the author passed away.

We stand firm in our commitment to ensuring the preservation and acknowledgment of community roots and history.

With your help, we can ensure that Elaine Kim's groundbreaking memoir is published with the care and attention it deserves. Your contribution will directly fund the final editing, production, and promotion of this critical text, allowing us to safeguard the story of a true giant in Asian American history.

Help us raise $15,000 for Primary Sources by December 31, 2025.

This fundraiser is part of Kaya Press's 2025 Make It Rain annual drive, and all donations are tax deductible. At Kaya Press, we believe that books and community help us all thrive. Your support as readers, writers, educators, and customers is the reason we have made it to 31 years as an independent publishing house dedicated to championing avant-garde, experimental, and expectation-busting literature from the Asian Pacific American and Asian diasporas.