Green Oranges

Shin Fujiyama grew up as an ordinary Japanese-American kid in the suburbs of Virginia. As a small-statured immigrant, he questioned his self-worth—until he found soccer. Cut after mere months on his college team, his sense of direction dissolved as quickly as it formed. When Shin saw a flyer for an international volunteer trip to Honduras, he took a chance. One week and his perspective was transformed. He returned to Honduras, determined to accomplish something no one believed he could do: end the cycle of generational poverty and gang violence in a riverbed shantytown. In Green Oranges, Shin tells the story of how he, a naive outsider in a world of murder, extortion, and crushing poverty, created a village for the orphaned and homeless. Starting with nothing in a country with the highest homicide rate in the world at the time, Shin confronted his deepest insecurities and repeated failures, building schools for children with no prior access to education and revitalizing a community. As powerful as The New York Times’ bestsellers Thirst and The Promise of a Pencil, Green Oranges is a raw memoir of how one man, against overwhelming odds, inspired thousands to accomplish the extraordinary for the poorest of the poor.