Alan Chong Lau’s poetic memoir of his days as a produce worker in Seattle’s Chinatown reveals a microcosm of grassroots, working-class Asian America–a world where customers, workers, and fruits and vegetables intersect in exchanges that crackle with energy and brim over with humor.

With the simple profundity of a Zen koan, the poems bear witness to people’s humanity. Lau portrays in words and pictures a community in constant flux as it moves to the push and pull of immigration. Blues and Greens has a lot to say about Asian Americans. What emerges is an acutely observed, nuanced critique of where Asian Americans–native-born, refugee, and migrant–are today.