Parenting with an Accent: How Immigrants Honor Their Heritage, Navigate Setbacks, and Chart New Paths for Their Children

Winner of the 2023 Sarton Award for Nonfiction

Merging real stories with research and on-the-ground reporting, an award-winning journalist and immigrant explores multicultural parenting and identity in the US

Through her own stories and interviews with other immigrant families, award-winning journalist Masha Rumer paints a realistic and compassionate picture of what it’s like for immigrant parents raising a child in America while honoring their cultural identities. Parenting with an Accent speaks to immigrant and non-immigrant readers alike, incorporating a diverse collection of voices and experiences to provide an intimate look at the lives of many different immigrant families across the country.

With a compelling blend of empirical data, humor, and on-the-ground reportage, Rumer presents interviews with experts on various aspects of parenting as an immigrant, including the challenges of acculturation, bilingualism strategies, and childcare. She visits a children’s Amharic class at an Ethiopian church in New York, a California vegetable farm, a Persian immersion school, and more. Through these stories, she opens a window to a world of parenting unique to multicultural families. Immigrant readers will appreciate Rumer’s gentle message about the kind of ethnic and cultural ambivalence that is born of having roots planted in many different soils, while in these pages non-immigrants get a fly-on-the-wall view of the unique experiences of newcomers.

Deeply researched yet personal, Parenting with an Accent centers immigrants and their experiences in a new country—emphasizing how immigrants and their children remain an integral part of America’s story.