On one side of the door, the enticing smell of sweet, spicy food and the calm of Buddhist devotion; on the other, the strangeness of a new land. When Ira Sukrungruang was born to Thai parents newly arrived in the U.S., they picked his Jewish moniker out of a book of "American" names. Ira relates the early life of a first-generation Thai-American and his constant, often bumbling attempts to meet cultural and familial expectations while coping with the trials of growing up in 1980s America....