Leaders are Readers!

Join the 20/30 Club Book Club and participate in monthly discussions with other young leaders. Stay inspired, re-read a classic, or learn new strategies for being an effective leader. The theme for May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month!

Registration is required in advance of the event. Book club will be a monthly series. Each attendee will have a chance to share their thoughts and discuss concepts from the book. Please feel free to bring discussion questions you'd like to cover and/or books to swap with other members!

This event has a small fee to cover food and is open to both Professional and Social members, however, we encourage our members to patronize our venue host. Know a book we should read next? Send us your favorites to be considered for future reads.

Goodreads Summary:

Sipping tea by the fire, preparing sushi for the family, or indulgently listening to her husband tell the same story for the hundredth time, Kimi Grant's grandmother, Obaachan, was a missing link to Kimi’s Japanese heritage, something she had had a mixed relationship with all her life. Growing up in rural Pennsylvania, all Kimi ever wanted to do was fit in, spurning traditional Japanese cuisine and her grandfather’s attempts to teach her the language.

But there was one part of Obaachan’s life that had fascinated and haunted Kimi ever since the age of eleven—her gentle yet proud Obaachan had once been a prisoner, along with 112,000 Japanese Americans, for more than five years of her life. Obaachan never spoke of those years, and Kimi’s own mother only spoke of it in whispers. It was a source of haji, or shame. But what had really happened to Obaachan, then a young woman, and the thousands of other men, women, and children like her?

Obaachan would meet her husband in the camps and watch her mother die there, too. From the turmoil, racism, and paranoia that sprang up after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the terrifying train ride to Heart Mountain, to the false promise of V-J Day, Silver Like Dust captures a vital chapter of the Japanese American experience through the journey of one remarkable woman.

Her story is one of thousands, yet is a powerful testament to the enduring bonds of family and an unusual look at the American dream.