Tripas: Poems

In this collection of poems, Brandon Som shares the stories of his parents and grandparents—one side descended from Chinese immigrants and the other from Mexican immigrants—and explores what it means for an individual to hold multiple identities, for a family to relate to one another, and for a people to experience injustice and hardship at the hands of racism.

This is a very intellectually challenging collection to read; you’ll definitely want to have Google translate handy. My favorite poems in the collection were “Teléfono Roto,” “Twin Plant,” “My Father’s Perm,” and “Super Mercado Lee Hou.”