It is important to recall that, well into the 1960s, most states within the U.S. still had miscegenation statutes -- laws against interracial marriage -- on the books. Even in the "groovy" land of sunny California of the period, unions between couples of mixed race were frowned upon, if not illegal. Add to that the inability of the general populace to distinguish between a Filipino man and any other "generic Asian," and McReynold's recollection about the shock of strangers about seeing a "Chinaman" with a white woman assumes a troubling clarity.

From a child's viewpoint, these issues are neither social nor political; they are personal. This is the key value of Almost Americans: the intimate voice of McReynold's remembrance is at once modest and ardent, bewildered and resolute, and at all times keenly focused.

"Official" records are lost, in this account, as in the lives of so many other immigrants. And, like the prodigious story-tellers of every generation, McReynolds here enriches the sometimes fragmented tales of her family members with her own gift of collecting and recording oral traditions. The cat's cradle that defines parenting for the author amply describes the manner in which each glance back and story told fits into the whole McReynolds is, finally, able to piece together.

Subtle humor, ridged wit, and an electrifying intelligence mark each page of this magnificent account, where the necessity of dignity eludes and, when found, may too easily dissipate. In the end, however, McReynolds conjures from within herself and her family's heritage precisely the dignity she has well-earned.