Bento Box (ベントボックス) in the Heartland

"Bento Box" (ベントボックス) = roughly translates to "box lunch"

Linda Furiya's Bento Box in the Heartland: My Japanese Girlhood in Whitebread America is a book about second-generation immigrant experience. It is a candid, personal and revealing memoir about growing up at the only Japanese family in an Indiana hometown in the 1960s.

When Furiya described when she ate lunch at the school cafeteria and found her mother packed the rice balls for her lunch instead sandwich, like the rest of her classmates. I can imagine how embarrassed that moment when she opened her lunch box. Also it made her feel she was so different from her classmates. This book is full of similar selective memories.

In addition to her memories, Furiya ends each chapter with a recipe for one of her favorite meals. It makes this book "more than" a memoir.

Enjoyable and very touching!