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Beautiful Country: A Read with Jenna Pick: A Memoir of an Undocumented Childhood
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Best Memoir & Autobiography (2021)A NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER - The moving story of an undocumented child living in poverty in the richest country in the world--an incandescent debut from an astonishing new talent - A TODAY SHOW #READWITHJENNA PICK
In Chinese, the word for America, Mei Guo, translates directly to "beautiful country." Yet when seven-year-old Qian arrives in New York City in 1994 full of curiosity, she is overwhelmed by crushing fear and scarcity. In China, Qian's parents were professors; in America, her family is "illegal" and it will require all the determination and small joys they can muster to survive.
In Chinatown, Qian's parents labor in sweatshops. Instead of laughing at her jokes, they fight constantly, taking out the stress of their new life on one another. Shunned by her classmates and teachers for her limited English, Qian takes refuge in the library and masters the language through books, coming to think of The Berenstain Bears as her first American friends. And where there is delight to be found, Qian relishes it: her first bite of gloriously greasy pizza, weekly "shopping days," when Qian finds small treasures in the trash lining Brooklyn's streets, and a magical Christmas visit to Rockefeller Center--confirmation that the New York City she saw in movies does exist after all.
But then Qian's headstrong Ma Ma collapses, revealing an illness that she has kept secret for months for fear of the cost and scrutiny of a doctor's visit. As Ba Ba retreats further inward, Qian has little to hold onto beyond his constant refrain: Whatever happens, say that you were born here, that you've always lived here.
Inhabiting her childhood perspective with exquisite lyric clarity and unforgettable charm and strength, Qian Julie Wang has penned an essential American story about a family fracturing under the weight of invisibility, and a girl coming of age in the shadows, who never stops seeking the light.
In Chinese, the word for America, Mei Guo, translates directly to "beautiful country." Yet when seven-year-old Qian arrives in New York City in 1994 full of curiosity, she is overwhelmed by crushing fear and scarcity. In China, Qian's parents were professors; in America, her family is "illegal" and it will require all the determination and small joys they can muster to survive.
In Chinatown, Qian's parents labor in sweatshops. Instead of laughing at her jokes, they fight constantly, taking out the stress of their new life on one another. Shunned by her classmates and teachers for her limited English, Qian takes refuge in the library and masters the language through books, coming to think of The Berenstain Bears as her first American friends. And where there is delight to be found, Qian relishes it: her first bite of gloriously greasy pizza, weekly "shopping days," when Qian finds small treasures in the trash lining Brooklyn's streets, and a magical Christmas visit to Rockefeller Center--confirmation that the New York City she saw in movies does exist after all.
But then Qian's headstrong Ma Ma collapses, revealing an illness that she has kept secret for months for fear of the cost and scrutiny of a doctor's visit. As Ba Ba retreats further inward, Qian has little to hold onto beyond his constant refrain: Whatever happens, say that you were born here, that you've always lived here.
Inhabiting her childhood perspective with exquisite lyric clarity and unforgettable charm and strength, Qian Julie Wang has penned an essential American story about a family fracturing under the weight of invisibility, and a girl coming of age in the shadows, who never stops seeking the light.
320 pages, Paperback
First published September 7, 2021
About the author
Qian Julie Wang
1 book1,363 followersQian Julie was born in Shijiazhuang, China. At age 7, she moved to Brooklyn, New York, with her parents. For five years thereafter, the three lived in the shadows of undocumented life in New York City. Qian Julie's first book is a poignant literary memoir that follows the family through those years, as they grappled with poverty, manual labor in sweatshops, lack of access to medical care, and the perpetual threat of deportation.
A graduate of Yale Law School and Swarthmore College—where she juggled classes and extracurriculars with four part-time jobs—Qian Julie is now a litigator. She wrote Beautiful Country on her iPhone, during her subway commute to and from work at a national law firm, where she was elected to partnership within two years of joining the firm. She is now managing partner of Gottlieb & Wang LLP, a firm dedicated to advocating for education and civil rights. Qian Julie believes that affording underprivileged communities the type of legal representation typically reserved for wealthy corporate interests is the first step to eradicating systemic barriers.
Qian Julie’s writing has appeared in major publications such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, and she regularly speaks on issues such as immigration, education, discrimination, and economic disparity. She is the founder and leader of the Jews of Color group at Central Synagogue, where she is also member of the Racial Justice Task Force and the social justice reform leadership. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and their two rescue dogs, Salty and Peppers.
A graduate of Yale Law School and Swarthmore College—where she juggled classes and extracurriculars with four part-time jobs—Qian Julie is now a litigator. She wrote Beautiful Country on her iPhone, during her subway commute to and from work at a national law firm, where she was elected to partnership within two years of joining the firm. She is now managing partner of Gottlieb & Wang LLP, a firm dedicated to advocating for education and civil rights. Qian Julie believes that affording underprivileged communities the type of legal representation typically reserved for wealthy corporate interests is the first step to eradicating systemic barriers.
Qian Julie’s writing has appeared in major publications such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, and she regularly speaks on issues such as immigration, education, discrimination, and economic disparity. She is the founder and leader of the Jews of Color group at Central Synagogue, where she is also member of the Racial Justice Task Force and the social justice reform leadership. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and their two rescue dogs, Salty and Peppers.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 4,189 reviews
August 7, 2021
i’m a little biased 🙃
August 21, 2021
If you ever want to feel EXTRA grateful for what you have, this book might be perfect for you.
Imagine a seven-year-old girl in China who’s living a happy, simple life with friends and family who look and live like her. Now, two years after her father fled China for America, or ‘Mei Guo’ - ‘the beautiful country’, she and her mother are leaving the only home they’ve ever known to join him there. Imagine the culture shock: people of all different colors, your senses overwhelmed by the new and unknown, and embedded into this bewildering experience is FEAR. You live with constant, daily fear of being discovered and sent back if someone doesn’t believe the cover story that your father has drilled into you that you were born in America and have always lived here.
Qian Julie Wang has written an eye-opening debut memoir told through the lens of her youth, that is an incredible and often heartbreaking view of her life growing up as an illegal immigrant in New York City. Her proud parents were reduced from educated, capable professionals in China, to people living in NYC’s shadows - her mother finding work in a sweatshop, among other menial jobs, and her father doing laundry work for barely livable wages. They had to rely on others in their situation or those willing to turn a blind eye, but they could never truly live openly and freely.
Wang’s account of her formative years is straight-up traumatic - punctuated by racist treatment from adults and peers alike, an initial complete lack of English skills, daily unrelenting hunger and the stigma of suffocating poverty, life in a tiny share house apartment with no privacy, and her parents’ increasingly contentious marriage. As an only child with few opportunities for real friendship, her relationship with her parents, Baba and Mama, is especially difficult to read about since they were often in an emotional fog or occasionally turned their frustrations on her. You feel her loneliness and the struggle of how to perceive these people who simultaneously love her and hurt her.
It’s not an easy read and my only downside is just the gloom inherent in a story like this, but the sun did emerge from the clouds, so to speak. It was uplifting to watch Qian teach herself English through watching PBS shows and reading library books, and to see her use her education to eventually overcome her dismal circumstances. I had a whole new appreciation for the book’s title by the end.
A beautiful debut!
★★★★ ½ (rounded to 4)
Thanks to Doubleday Books, Netgalley and author Qian Julie Wang for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinions. It will be published on Sept. 7, 2021.
Imagine a seven-year-old girl in China who’s living a happy, simple life with friends and family who look and live like her. Now, two years after her father fled China for America, or ‘Mei Guo’ - ‘the beautiful country’, she and her mother are leaving the only home they’ve ever known to join him there. Imagine the culture shock: people of all different colors, your senses overwhelmed by the new and unknown, and embedded into this bewildering experience is FEAR. You live with constant, daily fear of being discovered and sent back if someone doesn’t believe the cover story that your father has drilled into you that you were born in America and have always lived here.
Qian Julie Wang has written an eye-opening debut memoir told through the lens of her youth, that is an incredible and often heartbreaking view of her life growing up as an illegal immigrant in New York City. Her proud parents were reduced from educated, capable professionals in China, to people living in NYC’s shadows - her mother finding work in a sweatshop, among other menial jobs, and her father doing laundry work for barely livable wages. They had to rely on others in their situation or those willing to turn a blind eye, but they could never truly live openly and freely.
Wang’s account of her formative years is straight-up traumatic - punctuated by racist treatment from adults and peers alike, an initial complete lack of English skills, daily unrelenting hunger and the stigma of suffocating poverty, life in a tiny share house apartment with no privacy, and her parents’ increasingly contentious marriage. As an only child with few opportunities for real friendship, her relationship with her parents, Baba and Mama, is especially difficult to read about since they were often in an emotional fog or occasionally turned their frustrations on her. You feel her loneliness and the struggle of how to perceive these people who simultaneously love her and hurt her.
It’s not an easy read and my only downside is just the gloom inherent in a story like this, but the sun did emerge from the clouds, so to speak. It was uplifting to watch Qian teach herself English through watching PBS shows and reading library books, and to see her use her education to eventually overcome her dismal circumstances. I had a whole new appreciation for the book’s title by the end.
A beautiful debut!
★★★★ ½ (rounded to 4)
Thanks to Doubleday Books, Netgalley and author Qian Julie Wang for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinions. It will be published on Sept. 7, 2021.
September 26, 2021
Justice for Marilyn
November 8, 2022
**Many thanks to NetGalley, Doubleday and Qian Julie Wang for an ARC of this book! Now available as of 9.7, and now in paperback!**
On that run, only one thing kept pace with me, and it was not hunger. It was fear. Fear was all I tasted; fear was all I contained; fear was all I was.
Young Qian Qian travels to New York City with her Ma Ma and Ba Ba, far from their success and comfort in China to seek a better life in Mei Guo ("The Beautiful Country"). Like so many, however, their journey to America not only fails to give them the life they had before, but actually turns the tide for the worse. Qian's parents are both intelligent, professors in their own right: and yet, all America can afford them are the dark and dank confines of sweatshops and other menial labor, where Qian herself is by her mother's side to snip threads and collect coins, even at her tender age. School doesn't prove much easier for Qian, as her classmates are quick to scoff at her impoverished lifestyle, and she instead finds refuge in books, toys, and PBS shows and the occasional lucky find (Polly Pockets, for one) on the streets of New York City. As Qian deals with shady businessmen with questionable motives, Ba Ba's sometimes unbridled anger, and Ma Ma's untimely sickness, Qian fears each day could be her last in America. Can this young woman stand firm, hold steady, and find the Beautiful Country she has always envisioned...and make it her own?
I have always been drawn to memoir, but I have never TRULY identified with an author the way I did with Qian. This is in part because we have so much in common: we both grew up enamored with the written word, in love with Charlotte's Web, fascinated with Polly Pockets, lusting after Tamagotchis, drawn to the easy-breezy lives of the Wakefield Twins in Sweet Valley High and the powerful friendships of the girls in the Babysitter's Club: we are even the same age! Descriptions of Qian's self doubt and isolation also rang true with me, though we have vastly different life experiences. Though I've always been 'native' to the United States, ideologically I have always felt like I didn't TRULY belong in one way or another. Qian experienced all of this: but SO much more.
My heart broke over and over for her, but at the same time, I admired her unfailing resilience and determination to care for her parents and stand firm, no matter what the cost. She is a selfless and beautiful soul, and the fact that the 'rules' of a country or a sheet of paper could reduce her to a human considered "less than" in the eyes of the law is sickening to me. Her very essence even comes into question as her teacher can't comprehend that a Chinese immigrant could produce an out-of-this-world essay and assumes it MUST be plagiarized. Truly shocking, and yet, thinly veiled xenophobia hurts our nation today more than ever.
This memoir is heavy, emotional, and unlike anything I've ever read before. Although I won't reveal how Qian's journey ends, the last chapter was both heart-wrenching and hopeful, and Qian's author's note nearly left me in tears. She couldn't have picked a better time to bring her story to the world and I am so grateful to have read it.
Qian is a bold and brave woman who, by the end of her story, is finally allowed to define herself by what she is, rather than what she is not. An absolute stunner of a debut! Don't miss it!
4.5 ⭐, rounded up to 5
On that run, only one thing kept pace with me, and it was not hunger. It was fear. Fear was all I tasted; fear was all I contained; fear was all I was.
Young Qian Qian travels to New York City with her Ma Ma and Ba Ba, far from their success and comfort in China to seek a better life in Mei Guo ("The Beautiful Country"). Like so many, however, their journey to America not only fails to give them the life they had before, but actually turns the tide for the worse. Qian's parents are both intelligent, professors in their own right: and yet, all America can afford them are the dark and dank confines of sweatshops and other menial labor, where Qian herself is by her mother's side to snip threads and collect coins, even at her tender age. School doesn't prove much easier for Qian, as her classmates are quick to scoff at her impoverished lifestyle, and she instead finds refuge in books, toys, and PBS shows and the occasional lucky find (Polly Pockets, for one) on the streets of New York City. As Qian deals with shady businessmen with questionable motives, Ba Ba's sometimes unbridled anger, and Ma Ma's untimely sickness, Qian fears each day could be her last in America. Can this young woman stand firm, hold steady, and find the Beautiful Country she has always envisioned...and make it her own?
I have always been drawn to memoir, but I have never TRULY identified with an author the way I did with Qian. This is in part because we have so much in common: we both grew up enamored with the written word, in love with Charlotte's Web, fascinated with Polly Pockets, lusting after Tamagotchis, drawn to the easy-breezy lives of the Wakefield Twins in Sweet Valley High and the powerful friendships of the girls in the Babysitter's Club: we are even the same age! Descriptions of Qian's self doubt and isolation also rang true with me, though we have vastly different life experiences. Though I've always been 'native' to the United States, ideologically I have always felt like I didn't TRULY belong in one way or another. Qian experienced all of this: but SO much more.
My heart broke over and over for her, but at the same time, I admired her unfailing resilience and determination to care for her parents and stand firm, no matter what the cost. She is a selfless and beautiful soul, and the fact that the 'rules' of a country or a sheet of paper could reduce her to a human considered "less than" in the eyes of the law is sickening to me. Her very essence even comes into question as her teacher can't comprehend that a Chinese immigrant could produce an out-of-this-world essay and assumes it MUST be plagiarized. Truly shocking, and yet, thinly veiled xenophobia hurts our nation today more than ever.
This memoir is heavy, emotional, and unlike anything I've ever read before. Although I won't reveal how Qian's journey ends, the last chapter was both heart-wrenching and hopeful, and Qian's author's note nearly left me in tears. She couldn't have picked a better time to bring her story to the world and I am so grateful to have read it.
Qian is a bold and brave woman who, by the end of her story, is finally allowed to define herself by what she is, rather than what she is not. An absolute stunner of a debut! Don't miss it!
4.5 ⭐, rounded up to 5
August 15, 2022
such a humbling story.
as qian julie wang recounts her childhood years as an undocumented immigrant in NYC, she explores not only the trials many immigrant families face, but also the beads of hope that create the foundation of a home.
before QJW came to america, friends and family in china told her of two americas - one where everyone is poor and hungry, and another of where everyone is rich and beautiful. and i think this memoir captures that duality of the US so perfectly, how both of those americas exist, no matter how heartbreaking that is.
deeply personal and (i imagine) deeply cathartic, this is a tale that explores the generational trauma that many asian american families experience, the immense pressure for perfection and honor many children of immigrants face, and the tremendous sacrifice parents go through in order to provide for a better life.
↠ 4.5 stars
as qian julie wang recounts her childhood years as an undocumented immigrant in NYC, she explores not only the trials many immigrant families face, but also the beads of hope that create the foundation of a home.
before QJW came to america, friends and family in china told her of two americas - one where everyone is poor and hungry, and another of where everyone is rich and beautiful. and i think this memoir captures that duality of the US so perfectly, how both of those americas exist, no matter how heartbreaking that is.
deeply personal and (i imagine) deeply cathartic, this is a tale that explores the generational trauma that many asian american families experience, the immense pressure for perfection and honor many children of immigrants face, and the tremendous sacrifice parents go through in order to provide for a better life.
↠ 4.5 stars
January 9, 2022
I’ve read a few immigrant stories in my day, but none so vividly captured the contemporary experience of moving to my “beautiful country,” America, through the eyes of a child as did Qian Julie Wang’s 2021 memoir.
Qian and her parents moved to New York’s Chinatown in 1994 and had to rebuild their life amidst sweatshop employment conditions and disgusting tenement living quarters. Since she’s just a child under 10, she’s slightly more adept at acclimating to the US way of life than her parents. Learning the new language comes a bit easier to her, but that doesn’t save her from the poverty, racism, and overall hardships.
The thing that struck me most about “Beautiful Country” is how razor-focused Qian’s childhood memories are. She writes of her youth as an illegal immigrant with the innocence of a young girl, as opposed to filtering it through a lens of an adult who has lived and learned and is now looking back. The result is a memoir that feels relatable even if you have nothing in common with her circumstance other than the shared experience of being a child. Can’t we all relate to trying to make sense of the world when we were kids?
Beautiful Country is now available and was the Today Show / Read with Jenna book club pick for September, 2021.
Blog: https://www.confettibookshelf.com/
Qian and her parents moved to New York’s Chinatown in 1994 and had to rebuild their life amidst sweatshop employment conditions and disgusting tenement living quarters. Since she’s just a child under 10, she’s slightly more adept at acclimating to the US way of life than her parents. Learning the new language comes a bit easier to her, but that doesn’t save her from the poverty, racism, and overall hardships.
The thing that struck me most about “Beautiful Country” is how razor-focused Qian’s childhood memories are. She writes of her youth as an illegal immigrant with the innocence of a young girl, as opposed to filtering it through a lens of an adult who has lived and learned and is now looking back. The result is a memoir that feels relatable even if you have nothing in common with her circumstance other than the shared experience of being a child. Can’t we all relate to trying to make sense of the world when we were kids?
Beautiful Country is now available and was the Today Show / Read with Jenna book club pick for September, 2021.
Blog: https://www.confettibookshelf.com/
September 18, 2021
Ugly memoir...
I think reading memoirs is an amazing way to develop empathy and learn about different cultures and life experiences. Crying in H Mart and Aftershocks are two prime examples of excellent memoirs that will teach you about culture through the lens of young women.
I was hoping Beautiful Country would bring the same level of insight, sadness and reflection, but unfortunately it was a huge miss for me.
Here are my critiques:
Wang only writes about her life until she’s in the sixth grade. The last chapter is an insanely quick summary of her life after she was a tween. I’m sorry but a memoir doesn’t end at 12 years-old.
It’s a lot of the same sad story. Her parents moved from China to NYC when Wang was very young and the majority of her childhood recount is working in sweatshops, starving and reading books in the bathroom. While it is a heartbreaking story it doesn’t really evolve out of a few narratives. Half of the book is about how Wang’s parents didn’t feed her properly and her dreaming about the food she would like to eat.
At the end of the novel, and in Wang’s tweens, they move to Canada because they had enough of how the U.S. treated undocument immigrants. Canada welcomes them with open arms and Wang just glosses over this. There is no detail of her time here. She just focused the whole book on her negative experiences in NYC.
Wang does become a successful lawyer but you wouldn’t know it because she doesn’t write it! I had to find out in an interview AND she moved back to NYC! This annoys me to no end being a Canadian, so many people (primarily in entertainment) dump Canada for its sexier neighbour.
I wanted to hear her success story, whether she attributes her life now to America, Canada or even herself. I want the full story and I felt cheated by the end of this.
It’s definitely a book that could spark some interesting book club conversations because you can’t avoid discussing U.S. immigration.
I think reading memoirs is an amazing way to develop empathy and learn about different cultures and life experiences. Crying in H Mart and Aftershocks are two prime examples of excellent memoirs that will teach you about culture through the lens of young women.
I was hoping Beautiful Country would bring the same level of insight, sadness and reflection, but unfortunately it was a huge miss for me.
Here are my critiques:
Wang only writes about her life until she’s in the sixth grade. The last chapter is an insanely quick summary of her life after she was a tween. I’m sorry but a memoir doesn’t end at 12 years-old.
It’s a lot of the same sad story. Her parents moved from China to NYC when Wang was very young and the majority of her childhood recount is working in sweatshops, starving and reading books in the bathroom. While it is a heartbreaking story it doesn’t really evolve out of a few narratives. Half of the book is about how Wang’s parents didn’t feed her properly and her dreaming about the food she would like to eat.
At the end of the novel, and in Wang’s tweens, they move to Canada because they had enough of how the U.S. treated undocument immigrants. Canada welcomes them with open arms and Wang just glosses over this. There is no detail of her time here. She just focused the whole book on her negative experiences in NYC.
Wang does become a successful lawyer but you wouldn’t know it because she doesn’t write it! I had to find out in an interview AND she moved back to NYC! This annoys me to no end being a Canadian, so many people (primarily in entertainment) dump Canada for its sexier neighbour.
I wanted to hear her success story, whether she attributes her life now to America, Canada or even herself. I want the full story and I felt cheated by the end of this.
It’s definitely a book that could spark some interesting book club conversations because you can’t avoid discussing U.S. immigration.
November 22, 2021
The majority of this novel is about Qian Julie Wang’s childhood from age 7 through 6th grade. There is some background on the family at the beginning and then author’s notes at the end to complete the story.
I have read a lot of books about immigrants but each one is unique. Many immigrants have come from impoverished countries, having always been poor and are looking for a better life in the United States.
Ms. Wang however, grew up in a childhood that was filled with love, friends, her own room and toys to play with. Her mother was a math professor and her father an English professor. Things were changing for them. Where once they were a thriving family with a good income and a nice home, they were now being watched constantly. Her father “did not like that they were told what to say, and that they could not answer when students asked about something called the Cultural Revolution”. They decided he would come to “Mei Guo”, the beautiful country and would then send for his wife and daughter.
Ba Ba had not warned Ma Ma or Qian about the conditions he was living in. Where once they were professors, now they were working menial jobs under terrible conditions. They shared a tiny apartment that was dirty, with very little to call their own.
Qian quickly learned that they were “different” than other people here, even those that looked like her. They spoke a different language and their food was different. She was told to always say that she was born here, for fear of deportation as they were undocumented immigrants.
In many ways her story is that of so many other immigrants. Qian and her parents never gave up hope and Qian was determined to go to college and beyond.
As I read the memoir I did feel emotional. No one should have to live a life of poverty, little food and terrible living conditions.
Yet in spite of all of these hardships, the author still chose to return to the US for law school and continues to call New York home. She also credits the city library for allowing her to immerse herself in the language and even the culture of the US.
I received an ARC of this memoir from the publisher through NetGalley.
I have read a lot of books about immigrants but each one is unique. Many immigrants have come from impoverished countries, having always been poor and are looking for a better life in the United States.
Ms. Wang however, grew up in a childhood that was filled with love, friends, her own room and toys to play with. Her mother was a math professor and her father an English professor. Things were changing for them. Where once they were a thriving family with a good income and a nice home, they were now being watched constantly. Her father “did not like that they were told what to say, and that they could not answer when students asked about something called the Cultural Revolution”. They decided he would come to “Mei Guo”, the beautiful country and would then send for his wife and daughter.
Ba Ba had not warned Ma Ma or Qian about the conditions he was living in. Where once they were professors, now they were working menial jobs under terrible conditions. They shared a tiny apartment that was dirty, with very little to call their own.
Qian quickly learned that they were “different” than other people here, even those that looked like her. They spoke a different language and their food was different. She was told to always say that she was born here, for fear of deportation as they were undocumented immigrants.
In many ways her story is that of so many other immigrants. Qian and her parents never gave up hope and Qian was determined to go to college and beyond.
As I read the memoir I did feel emotional. No one should have to live a life of poverty, little food and terrible living conditions.
Yet in spite of all of these hardships, the author still chose to return to the US for law school and continues to call New York home. She also credits the city library for allowing her to immerse herself in the language and even the culture of the US.
I received an ARC of this memoir from the publisher through NetGalley.
November 18, 2021
Audiobook….read by Qian Julie Wang
….9 hours and 38 minutes
Fear, hunger, loneliness, sadness, anger, worry, shame, and exhaustion were feelings our protagonist lived with as a child ‘coming-of-age’ ….in America.
I’m sorry for the fearful painful childhood Qian had…
Seven-year Qian not only looked and felt different from others - but she often felt unworthy and invisible.
Very sad - Qian had to find ways to work this out for herself over time …
Looking back … through the eyes of a child….
we learn of the bleak-grueling horrors associated with undocumented life in America:
….new language, unfamiliar culture, financial struggles, menial jobs, daily living hardships, and risks taken to survive.
Qian Julie Wang also shared the joy of eating pizza for the first time and other cute/humorous tales…while envisioning a more incandescent future….
(Goals accomplished:
Wang is a graduate of Yale Law School and Swarthmore College…..and is a civil rights litigator today)
But mostly it was the hardships that were examined in this memoir.
Qian exposes the many cracks in the American dream.
Nothing wrong with this book -it’s Wang’s memoir…
Many daunting tales… authentic storytelling…
but
from a reader who has read dozens of immigrant stories….”The Sympathizer”, by Viet Thanh Nguyen,
“Crying in H Mark” by Michelle Zauner, “Interior Chinatown”, by Charles Yu,
“Pachinko”, by Min Jin Lee, etc.
I wasn’t shocked or awakened about the taut, fierce, tragedies —
Emotionally….I felt neutral —
I listened to Qian’s childhood experiences -(passively)-
and to her parent’s
hardships. I took it in —
listened with ‘interest enough’ - but my emotions were naturally restrained.
I appreciate the depictions of memory that were written….
Qian held onto love and forgiveness regarding her parents choices —She demonstrated her own resilience…and examined the realities of being an undocumented immigrant in America with unflinching precision.
But that close connection between the written words and my own invested feelings were a little off.
When it comes to undocumented immigration…unsettling times live on.
….9 hours and 38 minutes
Fear, hunger, loneliness, sadness, anger, worry, shame, and exhaustion were feelings our protagonist lived with as a child ‘coming-of-age’ ….in America.
I’m sorry for the fearful painful childhood Qian had…
Seven-year Qian not only looked and felt different from others - but she often felt unworthy and invisible.
Very sad - Qian had to find ways to work this out for herself over time …
Looking back … through the eyes of a child….
we learn of the bleak-grueling horrors associated with undocumented life in America:
….new language, unfamiliar culture, financial struggles, menial jobs, daily living hardships, and risks taken to survive.
Qian Julie Wang also shared the joy of eating pizza for the first time and other cute/humorous tales…while envisioning a more incandescent future….
(Goals accomplished:
Wang is a graduate of Yale Law School and Swarthmore College…..and is a civil rights litigator today)
But mostly it was the hardships that were examined in this memoir.
Qian exposes the many cracks in the American dream.
Nothing wrong with this book -it’s Wang’s memoir…
Many daunting tales… authentic storytelling…
but
from a reader who has read dozens of immigrant stories….”The Sympathizer”, by Viet Thanh Nguyen,
“Crying in H Mark” by Michelle Zauner, “Interior Chinatown”, by Charles Yu,
“Pachinko”, by Min Jin Lee, etc.
I wasn’t shocked or awakened about the taut, fierce, tragedies —
Emotionally….I felt neutral —
I listened to Qian’s childhood experiences -(passively)-
and to her parent’s
hardships. I took it in —
listened with ‘interest enough’ - but my emotions were naturally restrained.
I appreciate the depictions of memory that were written….
Qian held onto love and forgiveness regarding her parents choices —She demonstrated her own resilience…and examined the realities of being an undocumented immigrant in America with unflinching precision.
But that close connection between the written words and my own invested feelings were a little off.
When it comes to undocumented immigration…unsettling times live on.
September 6, 2021
I’m quite picky when it comes to memoirs and tend to gravitate towards those where I am able to either relate to the experiences of the author or connect with them in some way. While there are a plethora of memoirs out there, the reality is that very few of those memoirs are actually written from the perspective of someone who shares a similar background as myself — namely, a Chinese-American woman from an immigrant family who has struggled with identity and belonging her entire life. This is why, when I found out about Qian Julie Wang’s memoir
Beautiful Country
, I knew I absolutely had to pick this one up. This powerful memoir is exactly one of those rare gems that most closely encapsulates the immigrant experience that I grew up with. Though there are obvious differences between our circumstances in terms of how are families came to America (the titular “beautiful country” as directly translated from Chinese) — for example, my family immigrated here legally while Wang’s family ended up here illegally due to an expired visa — many of the struggles that Wang recounts from her childhood are ones that I’ve also experienced.
Wang tells her story starting from the perspective of her seven-year-old self, when she is told to put her most prized possessions into her grandparents’ storage unit in China so she could accompany her mother on a “flying machine” (literal translation of 飛機 or “airplane”) that eventually lands in a place called “beautiful country” (literal translation of 美國 or “America”). From the moment Wang and her mother step off the plane at JFK airport (New York) and are reunited with her father (who had gone to America two years earlier), her life is forever changed in ways that eventually shape who she becomes in adulthood. Though she didn’t know it at the time, leaving China for America meant that Wang would go from an environment where she was surrounded by extended family, unconditional love, and every comfort possible, to one where loneliness was a constant companion, familial love came with strings attached, and every day was a fight for survival at all levels (physically, mentally, emotionally). We witness Wang’s coming of age through the wide-eyed lens of a child forced to navigate a world she does not understand and where she was taught to put her head down, do as she was told, and endure whatever was thrown her way without complaint because that was the expectation of someone in her situation.
While in China, Wang’s parents were highly educated professionals, in America they were reduced to working in sweatshops and other low-paying jobs that allowed them to remain in the shadows, with the constant fear of their illegal status being discovered hanging over them. The stress of their new life in a foreign country where, despite their efforts to remain invisible, they are still largely unwelcomed, takes a toll on Wang’s parents and eventually leads to the fracturing of their family. Illegal status aside though, Wang’s struggles growing up as an immigrant child resonated deeply with me — from the humiliation of a tenuous living situation where there was little to no privacy, to not being able to afford the most basic of comforts that seemed to come easily to everyone else (ie: enough food for the table, a roof over our heads, clean clothes to wear to school); to being constantly told that, no matter how hard you work to fit in or how much you contribute to your community, you will never truly belong; to the bullying and racism, both subtle and direct, that becomes an inevitable part of the immigrant experience. For me, this book was difficult to read — not because of challenging subject matter or anything like that — but because of the familiarity of Wang’s experiences and the memories they brought back of my own childhood. One experience in particular had me near tears when I read it: the scene where, in fifth grade, Wang is summoned to her (white male) teacher’s desk one day and, shown an essay she had written and submitted, is essentially accused of plagiarism because the essay was “too well written” and the English was “too good” to have been written by her. Even though she told her teacher that she truly did write the essay and didn’t plagiarize, her status meant that she was not to be believed, so after that incident, Wang would deliberately include spelling and grammatical errors in all her essays to avoid having to endure a similar confrontation with her teacher in the future. This scene resonated with me in particular because this was a common experience for me throughout my entire elementary and middle school education: being told that something I wrote couldn’t possibly have been written by me because the English was “too good” and that I must have copied it from elsewhere. As a result, I also started deliberately including “errors” in my writing to avoid confrontation. Luckily, I later attended a high school and college that embraced diversity and eventually recognized my efforts (though the shaken confidence in how I view my writing is something that I still carry with me to this day).
This was truly a profound and emotional read for me, one that I know will stay with me for a long time to come. Even though reading this memoir brought back some unhappy memories for me, I appreciate the fact that a book like this one exists. While I am buoyed by the knowledge that our country has come a long way in terms of racial diversity and acceptance, at the same time, I am saddened by the obvious steps backwards that we as a society have also taken in this area, over the past few years especially. Now more than ever, we need books like this one that can hopefully help open people’s eyes to the plight that so many in our society experience — a timely read that I absolutely recommend!
Received ARC from Doubleday Books via Edelweiss.
Wang tells her story starting from the perspective of her seven-year-old self, when she is told to put her most prized possessions into her grandparents’ storage unit in China so she could accompany her mother on a “flying machine” (literal translation of 飛機 or “airplane”) that eventually lands in a place called “beautiful country” (literal translation of 美國 or “America”). From the moment Wang and her mother step off the plane at JFK airport (New York) and are reunited with her father (who had gone to America two years earlier), her life is forever changed in ways that eventually shape who she becomes in adulthood. Though she didn’t know it at the time, leaving China for America meant that Wang would go from an environment where she was surrounded by extended family, unconditional love, and every comfort possible, to one where loneliness was a constant companion, familial love came with strings attached, and every day was a fight for survival at all levels (physically, mentally, emotionally). We witness Wang’s coming of age through the wide-eyed lens of a child forced to navigate a world she does not understand and where she was taught to put her head down, do as she was told, and endure whatever was thrown her way without complaint because that was the expectation of someone in her situation.
While in China, Wang’s parents were highly educated professionals, in America they were reduced to working in sweatshops and other low-paying jobs that allowed them to remain in the shadows, with the constant fear of their illegal status being discovered hanging over them. The stress of their new life in a foreign country where, despite their efforts to remain invisible, they are still largely unwelcomed, takes a toll on Wang’s parents and eventually leads to the fracturing of their family. Illegal status aside though, Wang’s struggles growing up as an immigrant child resonated deeply with me — from the humiliation of a tenuous living situation where there was little to no privacy, to not being able to afford the most basic of comforts that seemed to come easily to everyone else (ie: enough food for the table, a roof over our heads, clean clothes to wear to school); to being constantly told that, no matter how hard you work to fit in or how much you contribute to your community, you will never truly belong; to the bullying and racism, both subtle and direct, that becomes an inevitable part of the immigrant experience. For me, this book was difficult to read — not because of challenging subject matter or anything like that — but because of the familiarity of Wang’s experiences and the memories they brought back of my own childhood. One experience in particular had me near tears when I read it: the scene where, in fifth grade, Wang is summoned to her (white male) teacher’s desk one day and, shown an essay she had written and submitted, is essentially accused of plagiarism because the essay was “too well written” and the English was “too good” to have been written by her. Even though she told her teacher that she truly did write the essay and didn’t plagiarize, her status meant that she was not to be believed, so after that incident, Wang would deliberately include spelling and grammatical errors in all her essays to avoid having to endure a similar confrontation with her teacher in the future. This scene resonated with me in particular because this was a common experience for me throughout my entire elementary and middle school education: being told that something I wrote couldn’t possibly have been written by me because the English was “too good” and that I must have copied it from elsewhere. As a result, I also started deliberately including “errors” in my writing to avoid confrontation. Luckily, I later attended a high school and college that embraced diversity and eventually recognized my efforts (though the shaken confidence in how I view my writing is something that I still carry with me to this day).
This was truly a profound and emotional read for me, one that I know will stay with me for a long time to come. Even though reading this memoir brought back some unhappy memories for me, I appreciate the fact that a book like this one exists. While I am buoyed by the knowledge that our country has come a long way in terms of racial diversity and acceptance, at the same time, I am saddened by the obvious steps backwards that we as a society have also taken in this area, over the past few years especially. Now more than ever, we need books like this one that can hopefully help open people’s eyes to the plight that so many in our society experience — a timely read that I absolutely recommend!
Received ARC from Doubleday Books via Edelweiss.
October 4, 2021
Five stars! ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Thank you to Doubleday for the gifted copy.
I both read and listened to this gorgeous memoir. I especially love a memoir narrated by the author. In Chinese, the word for America directly translates to “beautiful country.” Qian and her family arrive in NYC when she’s seven years old. Her parents were professors in China, and here they are undocumented and fighting to survive.
Now Qian’s parents are forced to work in sweatshops for low wages. Qian struggles in school, especially socially, because she is learning English. She is most at home in the library where she learns the language through books and reading. Just as Qian begins to “fit in” and feel at home, her mother becomes very ill, something she’s hidden for months.
Beautiful Country is the story of an often invisible family, with loving parents empowering their daughter to dream. Flawlessly written with profound messages, I lack the words other than to tell you this is an important must-read.
Many of my reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com and instagram: www.instagram.com/tarheelreader
Thank you to Doubleday for the gifted copy.
I both read and listened to this gorgeous memoir. I especially love a memoir narrated by the author. In Chinese, the word for America directly translates to “beautiful country.” Qian and her family arrive in NYC when she’s seven years old. Her parents were professors in China, and here they are undocumented and fighting to survive.
Now Qian’s parents are forced to work in sweatshops for low wages. Qian struggles in school, especially socially, because she is learning English. She is most at home in the library where she learns the language through books and reading. Just as Qian begins to “fit in” and feel at home, her mother becomes very ill, something she’s hidden for months.
Beautiful Country is the story of an often invisible family, with loving parents empowering their daughter to dream. Flawlessly written with profound messages, I lack the words other than to tell you this is an important must-read.
Many of my reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com and instagram: www.instagram.com/tarheelreader
October 1, 2021
"In the vacuum of anxiety that was undocumented life, fear was gaseous: it expanded to fill our entire world until it was all we could breathe."
In Mandarin, the name for America is 'Mei Guo', which translates literally into 'Beautiful Country'. However, as many find out, America is anything but beautiful for countless people.
At the age of seven, Wang Qian moved with her mother to New York City where her father had been living for two years. They came on a visitor's visa... and stayed. Though her parents were professors in China and they lived a comfortable lifestyle, in America they had to resort to menial, low wage jobs.
Qian writes about her childhood, both in China and later in New York. They lived in a one room apartment, sharing a bathroom and kitchen with the other tenants of the building. She often went hungry as her parents could not afford much.
They lived in constant fear of being found out and deported. Young Qian strived to fit in and become American, wanting to speak perfect English so that no one would suspect she hadn't been born in the US.
This is an interesting memoir. I like to read about people whose lives are very different from my own, and it's always good to learn the struggles people face, in order to be more compassionate.
This is well-written and engaging and yet I'm left with questions. Qian never explains why her parents moved to the US in the first place, why they stayed when they were so much better off in China.
At first I thought perhaps her father, having complained about not being able to speak freely in China, had gotten into trouble with the authorities and fled the country. However, that can't be the case because they later went back to visit family.
It didn't make any sense to me because at one point, Qian and her mother up and move to Canada. It's not explained how she gets papers, or even if she did.... though I assume she did because she went through customs agents to get into the country and shortly thereafter was able to secure papers for her husband and to travel to China.
They were living as undocumented people for years in America and then - wah-la! - magically procured Canadian papers and moved there.
It just doesn't add up. And again, why stay in America when their lives were so miserable and poverty-stricken if they had been living better in China? Perhaps they didn't have money for airfare, but all they would have needed to do is make themselves known to the authorities and they'd have been put on a plane back to China.
I kept waiting for answers that never came. Perhaps Qian doesn't feel like she should explain for her parents and perhaps it's not really my business to know. But it just left me feeling like I got an incomplete story. The author's evading the issue makes me feel like I'm being lied to, makes me wonder how much of the story is real and how much is embellishment.
I'm torn between giving this three or four stars. It probably would be five if it wasn't for all these questions I'm left with. However, it did keep my attention and was hard to put down. No matter the circumstances, Qian struggled as a child, both with hunger and poverty and with trying to fit in when people, even teachers, treated her badly and as a stereotype. Her resilience is remarkable, and questions or not, I'm left feeling more compassion for the plight of immigrants, both documented and not.
In Mandarin, the name for America is 'Mei Guo', which translates literally into 'Beautiful Country'. However, as many find out, America is anything but beautiful for countless people.
At the age of seven, Wang Qian moved with her mother to New York City where her father had been living for two years. They came on a visitor's visa... and stayed. Though her parents were professors in China and they lived a comfortable lifestyle, in America they had to resort to menial, low wage jobs.
Qian writes about her childhood, both in China and later in New York. They lived in a one room apartment, sharing a bathroom and kitchen with the other tenants of the building. She often went hungry as her parents could not afford much.
They lived in constant fear of being found out and deported. Young Qian strived to fit in and become American, wanting to speak perfect English so that no one would suspect she hadn't been born in the US.
This is an interesting memoir. I like to read about people whose lives are very different from my own, and it's always good to learn the struggles people face, in order to be more compassionate.
This is well-written and engaging and yet I'm left with questions. Qian never explains why her parents moved to the US in the first place, why they stayed when they were so much better off in China.
At first I thought perhaps her father, having complained about not being able to speak freely in China, had gotten into trouble with the authorities and fled the country. However, that can't be the case because they later went back to visit family.
It didn't make any sense to me because at one point, Qian and her mother up and move to Canada. It's not explained how she gets papers, or even if she did.... though I assume she did because she went through customs agents to get into the country and shortly thereafter was able to secure papers for her husband and to travel to China.
They were living as undocumented people for years in America and then - wah-la! - magically procured Canadian papers and moved there.
It just doesn't add up. And again, why stay in America when their lives were so miserable and poverty-stricken if they had been living better in China? Perhaps they didn't have money for airfare, but all they would have needed to do is make themselves known to the authorities and they'd have been put on a plane back to China.
I kept waiting for answers that never came. Perhaps Qian doesn't feel like she should explain for her parents and perhaps it's not really my business to know. But it just left me feeling like I got an incomplete story. The author's evading the issue makes me feel like I'm being lied to, makes me wonder how much of the story is real and how much is embellishment.
I'm torn between giving this three or four stars. It probably would be five if it wasn't for all these questions I'm left with. However, it did keep my attention and was hard to put down. No matter the circumstances, Qian struggled as a child, both with hunger and poverty and with trying to fit in when people, even teachers, treated her badly and as a stereotype. Her resilience is remarkable, and questions or not, I'm left feeling more compassion for the plight of immigrants, both documented and not.
December 27, 2021
It probably makes me heartless to admit this was only a ⭐️⭐️ for me, but while I felt for the life of poverty the author experienced upon arriving in America, unfortunately that was about all she had to talk about. I don’t know if it was due to the age span she chose to write about or that the true story that would have been a potential riveting page turner actually belonged to her parents, but I found it impossible to become emotionally invested with so few details provided.
There are snippets of the mother working in a sweatshop, but there’s also mention of working as a waitress and at a beauty parlor and eventually she goes to school for computer programming, but no mention is made regarding any details of how those things came to be. The father’s job isn’t talked about much at all aside from once when he was ran into accidentally during a class field trip and mention is made of how finely dressed he was. And who the eff was Jim really? Just a somewhat creepy benefactor??? There HAD to be more to that part of the story! And to only cover the early years but stop upon moving from the US into Canada which truly is described as the land of milk and honey with free healthcare and no need to hide regarding immigration status only to eventually return to receive an Ivy League education and settle in New York City??? I want to know how THAT happened - not only about how America is full of racists and that our politicians talk out of both sides of their mouths. I already KNOW all of that. I live here! And why leave China at all? I mean the dad stuff is declared off limits immediately, but their life in China seemed like something I would have gone back to pronto once poppa proved to be a rolling stone.
One day I’ll realize memoirs just aren’t my jam. It’s real hard for my FOMO to avoid these dang book club picks, though.
There are snippets of the mother working in a sweatshop, but there’s also mention of working as a waitress and at a beauty parlor and eventually she goes to school for computer programming, but no mention is made regarding any details of how those things came to be. The father’s job isn’t talked about much at all aside from once when he was ran into accidentally during a class field trip and mention is made of how finely dressed he was. And who the eff was Jim really? Just a somewhat creepy benefactor??? There HAD to be more to that part of the story! And to only cover the early years but stop upon moving from the US into Canada which truly is described as the land of milk and honey with free healthcare and no need to hide regarding immigration status only to eventually return to receive an Ivy League education and settle in New York City??? I want to know how THAT happened - not only about how America is full of racists and that our politicians talk out of both sides of their mouths. I already KNOW all of that. I live here! And why leave China at all? I mean the dad stuff is declared off limits immediately, but their life in China seemed like something I would have gone back to pronto once poppa proved to be a rolling stone.
One day I’ll realize memoirs just aren’t my jam. It’s real hard for my FOMO to avoid these dang book club picks, though.
January 5, 2024
3.5★
“‘What can you do?’ A fat man responded. The shape of his face reminded me of a steaming pork bun. Saliva formed in my mouth.
‘I was a math and computers professor in Hebei Province.’
‘Mei yong,’ he shook his head. Useless.’“Ever wash dishes?’
. . . ‘I’m really good at sewing.
‘Unh. Na zhe.’ And another slip of paper was stuffed into her hand.”
And with that, Ma Ma and little Qian Wang walk to a big, dark sweatshop in a warehouse-like building in New York where Ma Ma will sit hunched over a sewing machine, sewing labels into shirts for three cents each. This is summer holidays, between first and second grade for Qian, so she is given very heavy scissors to cut off loose threads for one cent a piece.
Welcome to America, Mei Guo, which translates literally to Beautiful Country. This is Qian Wang’s memoir of her earliest years as an undocumented Chinese migrant.
The first thing her father insisted she learn by heart was to say she was born here and had always lived in America. Otherwise – deportation. That meant they had to keep their heads down, avoid getting to know anybody too well, and stick to menial jobs.
Her father left China a few years earlier because he was too outspoken in class about his political views, and he knew the government would crack down soon. So he disappeared in an airplane, and Qian feared she would never see him again.
“Ba Ba was a professor, like Ma Ma. But where Ma Ma taught math, Ba Ba taught English literature.”
Now they are reduced to living in impoverished circumstances, not enough food, no privacy, terrible plumbing, and neighbours who don’t like “chinks”.
Not only that, the other Chinese are very selective about who is higher class than whom. Who is assumed to be a professional or a farmer or labourer seems to depend on which language or dialect you speak, Mandarin, Cantonese, or one of the many others. The class system, caste system, social elites, snobs - it's the same everywhere, and when you are living in hiding, you have to be extra careful.
Qian inherited her father’s stubbornness. While still in China, she could afford to step out of line.
“Once, I made the mistake of asking why two plus two equaled four. As punishment, the teacher forced me to write ‘Wo dui bu qi,’ I’m sorry, in characters, one hundred times. Despite that it cost me an extra character per sentence, I proudly wrote instead: ‘Wo bu dui bu qi.’ I am ‘not’ sorry. The teacher never noticed because it was not what we wrote that mattered. It was the ability to control us.”
She can't rebel much in her first American schools because there's only one little girl in her class who can interpret for her, and she’s not very friendly. I found this story fascinating, but the writing seemed to jump around, with some anecdotes left kind of open-ended so that I felt there might have been more to say.
I think it’s an important first-hand account of what forced migration feels like to a small child who can’t blend in with the mainstream culture of a country, no matter how hard she tries. She misses her grandparents and her old friends.
“Most of the people around us had brown skin and dark hair. Other than our Cantonese landlady, we rarely ever saw anybody who looked like us, and when we did, they never talked to us in Chinese. I wondered if we had left behind the only place in the world that had our people.”
This concentrates on her very young years, and then it races a bit to bring her up to today. It is interesting, certainly, and I’m glad I read it. I’d have enjoyed it more if it had flowed more smoothly, but it is real, and that’s worth a lot.
Thanks to NetGalley and Doubleday for the copy for review. And thanks to Qian Julie Wang for sharing her history with us.
“‘What can you do?’ A fat man responded. The shape of his face reminded me of a steaming pork bun. Saliva formed in my mouth.
‘I was a math and computers professor in Hebei Province.’
‘Mei yong,’ he shook his head. Useless.’“Ever wash dishes?’
. . . ‘I’m really good at sewing.
‘Unh. Na zhe.’ And another slip of paper was stuffed into her hand.”
And with that, Ma Ma and little Qian Wang walk to a big, dark sweatshop in a warehouse-like building in New York where Ma Ma will sit hunched over a sewing machine, sewing labels into shirts for three cents each. This is summer holidays, between first and second grade for Qian, so she is given very heavy scissors to cut off loose threads for one cent a piece.
Welcome to America, Mei Guo, which translates literally to Beautiful Country. This is Qian Wang’s memoir of her earliest years as an undocumented Chinese migrant.
The first thing her father insisted she learn by heart was to say she was born here and had always lived in America. Otherwise – deportation. That meant they had to keep their heads down, avoid getting to know anybody too well, and stick to menial jobs.
Her father left China a few years earlier because he was too outspoken in class about his political views, and he knew the government would crack down soon. So he disappeared in an airplane, and Qian feared she would never see him again.
“Ba Ba was a professor, like Ma Ma. But where Ma Ma taught math, Ba Ba taught English literature.”
Now they are reduced to living in impoverished circumstances, not enough food, no privacy, terrible plumbing, and neighbours who don’t like “chinks”.
Not only that, the other Chinese are very selective about who is higher class than whom. Who is assumed to be a professional or a farmer or labourer seems to depend on which language or dialect you speak, Mandarin, Cantonese, or one of the many others. The class system, caste system, social elites, snobs - it's the same everywhere, and when you are living in hiding, you have to be extra careful.
Qian inherited her father’s stubbornness. While still in China, she could afford to step out of line.
“Once, I made the mistake of asking why two plus two equaled four. As punishment, the teacher forced me to write ‘Wo dui bu qi,’ I’m sorry, in characters, one hundred times. Despite that it cost me an extra character per sentence, I proudly wrote instead: ‘Wo bu dui bu qi.’ I am ‘not’ sorry. The teacher never noticed because it was not what we wrote that mattered. It was the ability to control us.”
She can't rebel much in her first American schools because there's only one little girl in her class who can interpret for her, and she’s not very friendly. I found this story fascinating, but the writing seemed to jump around, with some anecdotes left kind of open-ended so that I felt there might have been more to say.
I think it’s an important first-hand account of what forced migration feels like to a small child who can’t blend in with the mainstream culture of a country, no matter how hard she tries. She misses her grandparents and her old friends.
“Most of the people around us had brown skin and dark hair. Other than our Cantonese landlady, we rarely ever saw anybody who looked like us, and when we did, they never talked to us in Chinese. I wondered if we had left behind the only place in the world that had our people.”
This concentrates on her very young years, and then it races a bit to bring her up to today. It is interesting, certainly, and I’m glad I read it. I’d have enjoyed it more if it had flowed more smoothly, but it is real, and that’s worth a lot.
Thanks to NetGalley and Doubleday for the copy for review. And thanks to Qian Julie Wang for sharing her history with us.
Want to read
August 4, 2024memoirs!!!
November 28, 2021
3.5 stars! Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang was moving, heart wrenching and powerful. The author, Qian Julie Wang, both wrote the book and narrated the audiobook. Hearing her recount her story was heart rendering and so powerful. I was so moved by the courageous acts and resourcefulness of Qian at such a young age. It also made me so angry to learn about her early life as the daughter of undocumented immigrants. It was so disturbing to learn and discover the poverty Qian and her parents were forced to live in. Although both of Qian’s parents were well educated and held professional positions in China, their prior status was immediately erased as soon as they were granted entrance to the United States. It seems like there should be mentors or programs for undocumented immigrants with advanced educational degrees and/or professional training to be able to learn how to become contributing citizens with a chance to contribute to a country they longed to live in. I am in awe of how Qian Julie Wang and her mother was able to turn their lives around despite the opposition they faced. All they ever yearned for was understanding and empathy. Beautiful Country was most definitely eye opening. I recommend this audiobook highly.
October 9, 2021
3.5 stars.
Immigration and illegal immigrants is a hot topic right now. No matter where you fall on the spectrum of beliefs with this subject, one thing I think we can all agree on is that no child should starve or be scared for their life on a daily basis. This point is something that is painfully highlighted in this book. Qian Julie Wang’s parents came to America looking for a better life. Her parents were educated, held high profile professional jobs in China and were even published authors. Yet here they were forced to live the “undocumented” life and worked for pennies in sweatshops. They led a life of poverty, starvation, humiliation, exploitation and trauma. This book pulls back the curtains to give you a glimpse of the horror her family faced just to survive.
It took a lot of courage to write this book. Even though now she is legal, there is still that scared little girl hiding in the shadows who is terrified of being deported. But also, Wang is very open and honest about the good, bad and ugly parts of her and her life. As a mother, my heart broke every time her stomach rumbled with hunger, every time she blamed herself for her parent’s situation, every time she was made fun of for not speaking English correctly, every time she feared her mother or father might not come home, every time she feared she might not come home. This was her life at an age when she should have Barbie dolls and ballet lessons and play dates with her girl friends at the playground.
My criticism of the book is that it really stops with her at 6th grade and jumps to her being an adult. There’s a lot of story there I think would have been fascinating to read and learn. Also, while heartbreaking, at times in the book I didn’t connect emotionally with her the way I feel I should have. Either way, this book made me reflect on the life I’ve had and other sides of the immigration debate I honestly didn’t know (specifically the day to day life of an undocumented immigrant). I am thankful Wang was brave enough to share her story with the world.
My thanks to Qian Julie Wang, Doubleday Books and NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Immigration and illegal immigrants is a hot topic right now. No matter where you fall on the spectrum of beliefs with this subject, one thing I think we can all agree on is that no child should starve or be scared for their life on a daily basis. This point is something that is painfully highlighted in this book. Qian Julie Wang’s parents came to America looking for a better life. Her parents were educated, held high profile professional jobs in China and were even published authors. Yet here they were forced to live the “undocumented” life and worked for pennies in sweatshops. They led a life of poverty, starvation, humiliation, exploitation and trauma. This book pulls back the curtains to give you a glimpse of the horror her family faced just to survive.
It took a lot of courage to write this book. Even though now she is legal, there is still that scared little girl hiding in the shadows who is terrified of being deported. But also, Wang is very open and honest about the good, bad and ugly parts of her and her life. As a mother, my heart broke every time her stomach rumbled with hunger, every time she blamed herself for her parent’s situation, every time she was made fun of for not speaking English correctly, every time she feared her mother or father might not come home, every time she feared she might not come home. This was her life at an age when she should have Barbie dolls and ballet lessons and play dates with her girl friends at the playground.
My criticism of the book is that it really stops with her at 6th grade and jumps to her being an adult. There’s a lot of story there I think would have been fascinating to read and learn. Also, while heartbreaking, at times in the book I didn’t connect emotionally with her the way I feel I should have. Either way, this book made me reflect on the life I’ve had and other sides of the immigration debate I honestly didn’t know (specifically the day to day life of an undocumented immigrant). I am thankful Wang was brave enough to share her story with the world.
My thanks to Qian Julie Wang, Doubleday Books and NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
September 30, 2021
2.5 stars
I love a good memoir. I love funny + lighthearted memoirs, hard-to-read or disturbing memoirs, coming-of-age memoirs, immigrant memoirs... If a memoir can make me FEEL something (whether it's uplifting laughter, anger at an injustice, a sense of hope, or sadness about a chance that was missed) AND it accomplishes the goal of helping me understand more about what it was like to BE that person, then chances are, I'm going to love it. The best memoirs can be the window into other cultures, other lives, other opportunities (or lack thereof), choices and consequences.
The synopsis of Wang's book, Beautiful Country, felt like her story may deliver all of this. I eagerly picked it up and dove in, but my first clue that this may not be the right memoir for me was that at about the 15% mark, my excitement about picking up the book waned a bit. Before too long, I was almost forcing myself to pick it up. It's not that Wang's story isn't interesting... The actual events or her childhood, the dynamics of her family, the pieces she left behind in China are all INREDIBLY interesting. It's just that, for me, the way in which Wang used words to take the reader on that journey didn't hit home and hold impact.
One of my most consistent feelings while reading the first 85% (that percentage is NOT a typo) of this book was that this was the same thing happening, over and over again, on every single page. Wang spent the majority of her book on about 5 years of her life, but she just kept scratching the same surface over and over again. The hunger she experienced was unrelenting, it's clear, but Wang presented the same setting (the school cafeteria), over and over again to hammer home this feeling of hunger, so the concept of hunger didn't develop and become multi-dimensional. The same went with Wang's innocently childlike tendencies to protect her parents from arguing: over the dinner table, time and time again. It all just started being the same song on repeat, and I think it diminished what could have been a more powerful takeaway of her feelings + emotions and overall understanding of the circumstances she was in.
My second issue sort of dovetails with the first: the pacing of this novel. It moves SLOWLY. And I think much of that comes from the fact that each day felt a little like the day before it. I'm certain you can't live a life like Wang's without realizing, as an adult looking back and writing a memoir, that there were some revelatory parts of life. None of those are featured in Wang's story. The first 90% crawls by, and the last 10% is a warp-speed telling of Wang's entire older young adult through adulthood. I mean, it came out of nowhere... I read ~375 (Kindle) pages of Wang's 5 years of her childhood, and got less than 75 on the ENTIRE REST OF HER LIFE. Pacing was just WAY off... The beginning slumped along, the ending was incredibly rushed, and it created a really big disconnect for me.
I'll also note here that, despite the monotonous nature of much of this storytelling, each chapter sort of breaks from the flow of the one before it, to the point where it almost felt like each chapter almost had a "short story" feel to it. It feels THAT disconnected from the chapter before it, until you realize the each 3rd or 4th chapter just ends up being a repeat/continuation of 3 or 4 chapter before it. When I combined that start-and-stop disconnect with the realization that when that topic WAS picked back up in a later chapter it would just be more of the same, it caused a real lack of interest in picking the book back up each night.
The third issue, for me, sort of stemmed from that rush job at the end. It turns out that Wang and her mother run away to Canada where they welcome them with open arms, she attends Yale Law School, patches things up w/her father to some degree, cofounds a law practice, gets married... But because all of that is either glossed over or completely left out, there was never a balance presented to the hopeless feelings of Wang's childhood. The days were (and hence, this book was) very gray, dark and monotonous, which I fully believe... but when the sun started peeking through the clouds, you don't get to see that part. While I assume Wang will ALWAYS carry the trauma or her childhood with her, I wanted to see her get to experience some of the clouds lifting, some of the bars being removed, some of the feelings of SOMETHING when she achieved monumental achievements like attending law school at one of the US's most elite law schools. Most of her adult life, I only read about afterwards by googling Wang. If the writing was stronger, for me, in this book, I would have really hated missing out on Wang's later life and seeing her go through that process of feeling the tides turn little by little. As it was, I didn't want to get 300 more pages of the latter half of her life, so I was fine to let it go, but having SO much of the book only focused on the bleak, hopeless days and then to be told "But everything ended up a little better" in a 5-page span felt really off balance.
My best way to sum up my reading experience was I felt like Wang was "telling me instead of SHOWING me." The best memoirs do an excellent job of showing the reader something they could never envision otherwise, and this one missed the mark for me on that.
I love a good memoir. I love funny + lighthearted memoirs, hard-to-read or disturbing memoirs, coming-of-age memoirs, immigrant memoirs... If a memoir can make me FEEL something (whether it's uplifting laughter, anger at an injustice, a sense of hope, or sadness about a chance that was missed) AND it accomplishes the goal of helping me understand more about what it was like to BE that person, then chances are, I'm going to love it. The best memoirs can be the window into other cultures, other lives, other opportunities (or lack thereof), choices and consequences.
The synopsis of Wang's book, Beautiful Country, felt like her story may deliver all of this. I eagerly picked it up and dove in, but my first clue that this may not be the right memoir for me was that at about the 15% mark, my excitement about picking up the book waned a bit. Before too long, I was almost forcing myself to pick it up. It's not that Wang's story isn't interesting... The actual events or her childhood, the dynamics of her family, the pieces she left behind in China are all INREDIBLY interesting. It's just that, for me, the way in which Wang used words to take the reader on that journey didn't hit home and hold impact.
One of my most consistent feelings while reading the first 85% (that percentage is NOT a typo) of this book was that this was the same thing happening, over and over again, on every single page. Wang spent the majority of her book on about 5 years of her life, but she just kept scratching the same surface over and over again. The hunger she experienced was unrelenting, it's clear, but Wang presented the same setting (the school cafeteria), over and over again to hammer home this feeling of hunger, so the concept of hunger didn't develop and become multi-dimensional. The same went with Wang's innocently childlike tendencies to protect her parents from arguing: over the dinner table, time and time again. It all just started being the same song on repeat, and I think it diminished what could have been a more powerful takeaway of her feelings + emotions and overall understanding of the circumstances she was in.
My second issue sort of dovetails with the first: the pacing of this novel. It moves SLOWLY. And I think much of that comes from the fact that each day felt a little like the day before it. I'm certain you can't live a life like Wang's without realizing, as an adult looking back and writing a memoir, that there were some revelatory parts of life. None of those are featured in Wang's story. The first 90% crawls by, and the last 10% is a warp-speed telling of Wang's entire older young adult through adulthood. I mean, it came out of nowhere... I read ~375 (Kindle) pages of Wang's 5 years of her childhood, and got less than 75 on the ENTIRE REST OF HER LIFE. Pacing was just WAY off... The beginning slumped along, the ending was incredibly rushed, and it created a really big disconnect for me.
I'll also note here that, despite the monotonous nature of much of this storytelling, each chapter sort of breaks from the flow of the one before it, to the point where it almost felt like each chapter almost had a "short story" feel to it. It feels THAT disconnected from the chapter before it, until you realize the each 3rd or 4th chapter just ends up being a repeat/continuation of 3 or 4 chapter before it. When I combined that start-and-stop disconnect with the realization that when that topic WAS picked back up in a later chapter it would just be more of the same, it caused a real lack of interest in picking the book back up each night.
The third issue, for me, sort of stemmed from that rush job at the end. It turns out that Wang and her mother run away to Canada where they welcome them with open arms, she attends Yale Law School, patches things up w/her father to some degree, cofounds a law practice, gets married... But because all of that is either glossed over or completely left out, there was never a balance presented to the hopeless feelings of Wang's childhood. The days were (and hence, this book was) very gray, dark and monotonous, which I fully believe... but when the sun started peeking through the clouds, you don't get to see that part. While I assume Wang will ALWAYS carry the trauma or her childhood with her, I wanted to see her get to experience some of the clouds lifting, some of the bars being removed, some of the feelings of SOMETHING when she achieved monumental achievements like attending law school at one of the US's most elite law schools. Most of her adult life, I only read about afterwards by googling Wang. If the writing was stronger, for me, in this book, I would have really hated missing out on Wang's later life and seeing her go through that process of feeling the tides turn little by little. As it was, I didn't want to get 300 more pages of the latter half of her life, so I was fine to let it go, but having SO much of the book only focused on the bleak, hopeless days and then to be told "But everything ended up a little better" in a 5-page span felt really off balance.
My best way to sum up my reading experience was I felt like Wang was "telling me instead of SHOWING me." The best memoirs do an excellent job of showing the reader something they could never envision otherwise, and this one missed the mark for me on that.
November 19, 2021
Beautiful Country: A Memoir written by Qian Julie Wang of her immigration to the United States as a seven year-old child with her parents as they were fleeing Communist China. It details their settlement in a Brooklyn tenement house. Because they were in the country illegally, there was a constant fear that their immigration status would be discovered as they grappled with poverty, manual labor in sweatshops and the lack of access to medical care. This memoir is from the perspective of Qian as she adapts to school and a new country, a new culture, and new language. A precocious and intelligent child, books and learning became her refuge. As Qian describes her chidhood including visits to the library and her experiences as a young girl navigating the New York City subway system, I was in awe of this child's bravery and awareness of her sense of danger, always keeping vigilant and alert to possible dangers.
In the author's opening words in the Introduction, Wang cites that her story began decades before during the Cultural Revolution beginning in China in 1966 and lasting for a decade. Her father as a young boy was traumatized by the unparalleled turmoil that ensued. In her poignant words:
Qian Julie Wang actually has a pretty compelling backstory. She wrote Beautiful Country on her iphone as she commuted to and from her job in a national law firm as a litigator. A graduate of Swarthmore and Yale Law School, she now is dedicating her career to advocating for education and civil rights in underprivileged communities.
In the author's opening words in the Introduction, Wang cites that her story began decades before during the Cultural Revolution beginning in China in 1966 and lasting for a decade. Her father as a young boy was traumatized by the unparalleled turmoil that ensued. In her poignant words:
"Half a century and a migration across the world later, it would take therapy's slow and arduous unraveling for me to see that the thread of trauma was woven into every fiber of my family, my childhood."
"Tracing it all back, I know now that it was the moment I first became enamored with the idea of America. It was the first time I saw the beauty and glamour of the country, and really of New York City--though at that point the two were one and the same to me. The lights and the joy among the crowd that night showed me all the city was and had to offer: a completely different face of America than the one we had come to know. Finally, the Beautiful Country's name made sense."
"From then on, there was no saving me. I lived and breathed books. Where else could I find such a steady supply of friends, comforts, and worlds, all free for the taking? And so portable too--everywhere I went, there they were: on the subway, at recess, on the steps just outside Ba Ba's office. Unlike my teachers and classmates, they were reliable."
Qian Julie Wang actually has a pretty compelling backstory. She wrote Beautiful Country on her iphone as she commuted to and from her job in a national law firm as a litigator. A graduate of Swarthmore and Yale Law School, she now is dedicating her career to advocating for education and civil rights in underprivileged communities.
October 18, 2021
READ THIS BOOK. This is so wonderful. Qian comes to America when she is seven years old. In China, both of her parents are professors. Her father in particular had to survive some particularly harsh circumstances under the communist regime, but in America, they slave at sweatshops, their bodies contorted in painful configurations for hours on end doing menial tasks, sometimes in cold so bitter their hands turn purple. There is never enough to eat, and what food they do have is full of sodium and lacks nutrition.
Qian is an amazingly gifted writer. At times she tells this story with a journalistic distance of merely reporting what happened when it should be an opinion piece full of anger at all the inequities and horrors her family survived. I personally was furious with the white male teacher who thought there was no way Qian could possibly write such elegant, error-free essays and assumed she cheated. When she gets into a junior high for gifted students, he essentially tells her that she shouldn’t get big dreams that can’t possibly come true.
At other times this reads as lyrically as a fictional novel, or maybe I just wanted it to be fictional because their mistreatment, lack of medical care, and awful living conditions are too harsh for me to want to believe many undocumented immigrants have to survive this way.
This is such a good book. Highly recommend. Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this memoir.
Qian is an amazingly gifted writer. At times she tells this story with a journalistic distance of merely reporting what happened when it should be an opinion piece full of anger at all the inequities and horrors her family survived. I personally was furious with the white male teacher who thought there was no way Qian could possibly write such elegant, error-free essays and assumed she cheated. When she gets into a junior high for gifted students, he essentially tells her that she shouldn’t get big dreams that can’t possibly come true.
At other times this reads as lyrically as a fictional novel, or maybe I just wanted it to be fictional because their mistreatment, lack of medical care, and awful living conditions are too harsh for me to want to believe many undocumented immigrants have to survive this way.
This is such a good book. Highly recommend. Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this memoir.
September 7, 2021
Through the eyes of a child, the experiences of being an undocumented immigrant will leap off the page and into your heart in this unforgettable memoir.
In 1994, Qian Julie Wang arrives in America with her mother (Ma Ma) to join her father (Ba Ba) who has come before them. He could no longer stay in a country where he did not have freedom of expression. Both of Qian’s parents were professors in China yet their education and background became meaningless and their comfortable life disappears once they have to start anew in Mei Guo, America – the “Beautiful Country.” Harsh living conditions, hunger, sweatshops, racism and the daily fear of being found and deported become their new reality. Through it all, Qian teaches herself English and escapes into books. Their struggle seems hopeless. Yet the family’s incredible determination and resiliency moves them closer to fulfilling their dream of a better life.
Beautiful Country – A Memoir is a remarkable debut for the author, a Yale educated lawyer who had the courage to tell her story, which at times is hard to believe took place such a short time ago as the working conditions and squalor often read like a Dickens novel. Yet this is a very timely story that is especially relevant today as people continue to seek freedom.
Many thanks to Doubleday Books, NetGalley and the author for the opportunity to read Beautiful Country in advance of its September 7, 2021 release. This is a book that will stay with me for a long time.
Rated 4.5 stars.
Review posted on MicheleReader.com.
In 1994, Qian Julie Wang arrives in America with her mother (Ma Ma) to join her father (Ba Ba) who has come before them. He could no longer stay in a country where he did not have freedom of expression. Both of Qian’s parents were professors in China yet their education and background became meaningless and their comfortable life disappears once they have to start anew in Mei Guo, America – the “Beautiful Country.” Harsh living conditions, hunger, sweatshops, racism and the daily fear of being found and deported become their new reality. Through it all, Qian teaches herself English and escapes into books. Their struggle seems hopeless. Yet the family’s incredible determination and resiliency moves them closer to fulfilling their dream of a better life.
Beautiful Country – A Memoir is a remarkable debut for the author, a Yale educated lawyer who had the courage to tell her story, which at times is hard to believe took place such a short time ago as the working conditions and squalor often read like a Dickens novel. Yet this is a very timely story that is especially relevant today as people continue to seek freedom.
Many thanks to Doubleday Books, NetGalley and the author for the opportunity to read Beautiful Country in advance of its September 7, 2021 release. This is a book that will stay with me for a long time.
Rated 4.5 stars.
Review posted on MicheleReader.com.
May 23, 2021
I read this book in two days. Qian Julie Wang captured my heart with her beautifully written memoir of growing up as an undocumented immigrant. I was heartbroken by the racism and disconcern that left her family in dire poverty.
Her parents were educated professionals in China, her mother a math professor and her father an English literature professor. In America, they worked as menial laborers. In China, Qian was a fearless, intelligent, tomboy. In America, her teacher accused her of plagiarism, unable to accept her gift with words.
Qian's father had believed in the myth of American freedom. In China, he was punished for independent thinking. He left his wife and child for America, and it was years before they could join him.
Fear of being discovered kept them caged in poverty. When Qian's mother gains a degree, she can\'t work without proper paperwork.
Qian did not see the 'beautiful' country for a long time. The trauma of her childhood haunted her. When her family relocates to Canada, their lives improve. They were welcome. They had free health care and found appropriate work. Qian received a good education that prepared her for Swarthmore College and Yale Law School.
As a girl, Qian found solace in books. "I read until my loneliness dulled, and I felt myself to be in the good company of all my vibrantly colored, two-dimensional friends. I read until excitement replaced hopelessness," she writes. She bristled when a teacher pushed her to read 'boy' books as more 'worthwhile' than the stories of girl's lives. She found role models such as Thurgood Marshall and Ruth Bader Ginsburg who taught her that you did not have to be a white male to succeed.
Their family trauma began in China during the Cultural Revolution when her father was a small child who observed his brother arrested, his parents beaten. At school, he was berated and tormented.
"Half a century and a migration across the world later, it would take therapy's slow and arduous unraveling for me to see that the thread of trauma was woven into every fiber of my family, my childhood," Qian writes.
Qian dreams of a day when all people are treated humanely. She writes so others know they are not alone and they can also survive and even flourish.
I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.
Her parents were educated professionals in China, her mother a math professor and her father an English literature professor. In America, they worked as menial laborers. In China, Qian was a fearless, intelligent, tomboy. In America, her teacher accused her of plagiarism, unable to accept her gift with words.
Qian's father had believed in the myth of American freedom. In China, he was punished for independent thinking. He left his wife and child for America, and it was years before they could join him.
Fear of being discovered kept them caged in poverty. When Qian's mother gains a degree, she can\'t work without proper paperwork.
Qian did not see the 'beautiful' country for a long time. The trauma of her childhood haunted her. When her family relocates to Canada, their lives improve. They were welcome. They had free health care and found appropriate work. Qian received a good education that prepared her for Swarthmore College and Yale Law School.
As a girl, Qian found solace in books. "I read until my loneliness dulled, and I felt myself to be in the good company of all my vibrantly colored, two-dimensional friends. I read until excitement replaced hopelessness," she writes. She bristled when a teacher pushed her to read 'boy' books as more 'worthwhile' than the stories of girl's lives. She found role models such as Thurgood Marshall and Ruth Bader Ginsburg who taught her that you did not have to be a white male to succeed.
Their family trauma began in China during the Cultural Revolution when her father was a small child who observed his brother arrested, his parents beaten. At school, he was berated and tormented.
"Half a century and a migration across the world later, it would take therapy's slow and arduous unraveling for me to see that the thread of trauma was woven into every fiber of my family, my childhood," Qian writes.
Qian dreams of a day when all people are treated humanely. She writes so others know they are not alone and they can also survive and even flourish.
I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.
September 26, 2021
I was really hoping for a book in the vein of Educated,Glass Castle or Hillbilly Elegy. This is more like Maid. The author comes of very entitled. She speaks negatively about “rich white people” (apparently all white people are rich) but never addresses the fact her parents took her out of a comfortable life in China to come illegally to the US where she was always hungry and alone on NYC subways. Yet she somehow makes it into Swathmore and Yale Law School.
Read
September 24, 2022i don’t rate memoirs but WOW… this story was so powerful and impactful and emotional. truly hard to believe this was the 1990s in America 😭 so happy i read this. highly recommend you do too!
September 21, 2023
I hate rating memoirs and this one is especially hard to rate. In it's core its a story of a traumatic childhood, spent in a fear and hunger, in a hostile environment. Everything is told from a perspective of a child but with an adult insight and that mixture failed to resonate with me. All the dramatic events are described with a certain coldness as if author picked every memory in her hand and analyzed it without any emotion. Presented memories are strung together in a rough timeline but there are gaps between them that were making it difficult to understand what was really going on in authors life ie there is hunger and there are descriptions of her parents scolding her for looking too fat. What really happen and when? Detachment and timeline gaps made it really hard for me to sympathize with this little girl.
I also did not like that this memoir was focusing on only bad people in author's life - most of them are petty, ugly, mean, even cruel. All the men are perverts and all the women seem to lack dignity. When author encounters someone kind or inspiring she will mention it in a sentence or two and then quickly move to the bad guys as if she was afraid that describing some happy moments will diminish her suffering. To sum it up: it's a doom and gloom kind of story that focuses only on a bad side of life, where there is no hope and no end to the humiliation. But in the last chapter you learn that everything ended up quite well for the author and this is so abrupt and out of blue that made me quite baffled. I still don't know how I feel about this memoir hence 3 stars.
I also did not like that this memoir was focusing on only bad people in author's life - most of them are petty, ugly, mean, even cruel. All the men are perverts and all the women seem to lack dignity. When author encounters someone kind or inspiring she will mention it in a sentence or two and then quickly move to the bad guys as if she was afraid that describing some happy moments will diminish her suffering. To sum it up: it's a doom and gloom kind of story that focuses only on a bad side of life, where there is no hope and no end to the humiliation. But in the last chapter you learn that everything ended up quite well for the author and this is so abrupt and out of blue that made me quite baffled. I still don't know how I feel about this memoir hence 3 stars.
October 27, 2021
This was a complimentary copy from the publisher through NetGalley, about a Chinese immigrant family living in New York illegally. Qian writes of her struggles acclimating in school and living in poverty. I struggled to get through the book, not connecting with her writing. It felt choppy. The focus remained on her childhood up to high school and then hardly anything is said about her adult life, which seemed an odd choice.
2 stars from me means I thought "it was OK.".
2 stars from me means I thought "it was OK.".
March 27, 2024
My thanks to Qian Julie Wang, Doubleday Books, and NetGalley for the ARC.
What an extraordinary story of courage, determination, and resilience! I'll admit I found Beautiful Country to be harrowing to read at times. It tells of the heartbreak and strife experienced by an undocumented family as they attempted to fit into an unbelievably strange new life in America. I can't imagine leading a life shaped by severe poverty, and the constant fear that comes with being undocumented. It certainly opened my eyes! Just imagine attempting to fit into life in a new country when you are unable to speak or understand the language. Imagine being hungry every single day. In so many ways this was a heartbreaking story, yet it led to success due to Qian's unwavering strength and determination to never give up!
There needs to be a better way to deal with immigration in this country!!
What an extraordinary story of courage, determination, and resilience! I'll admit I found Beautiful Country to be harrowing to read at times. It tells of the heartbreak and strife experienced by an undocumented family as they attempted to fit into an unbelievably strange new life in America. I can't imagine leading a life shaped by severe poverty, and the constant fear that comes with being undocumented. It certainly opened my eyes! Just imagine attempting to fit into life in a new country when you are unable to speak or understand the language. Imagine being hungry every single day. In so many ways this was a heartbreaking story, yet it led to success due to Qian's unwavering strength and determination to never give up!
There needs to be a better way to deal with immigration in this country!!
October 2, 2021
I found it difficult to like this book and by the author's own admission, the depiction of a young Qian Julie is of a horrid kid - mean, vindictive, a bully, a liar, prone to petty thefts, sneaky ... - all adjectives found in the author's own narrative. Some may argue that circumstances may force someone to be that way. Hopefully this book is cathartic and that with therapy and a self realization of her past self which she is supposedly embarrassed about, that she has emerged as a better person.
Another flaw about this book is that the bulk of it focuses on a limited time period when Qian was young and was part of an illegal (I suppose I should be using the euphemism - undocumented) family from China living in New York. Omitted is her life in Canada, her life as a law student, a divorce which is mentioned in passing in her acknowledgements, and essentially what transpired beyond the sixth grade.
Many chapters and words are devoted to her wonderful memories of China and her lament about the hardships the family is facing in New York. I must admit that while reading, I thought - why don't you all just return - but then I tamper my thoughts that those are the perspectives of a very young child. Despite her unfavourable comparisons, I did glean a bit more of the Chinese culture over above what I learnt from visiting China, my own wonderful Chinese friends, and of course, books. For example:
Chinese kitchens were female spaces so they shared with outhouses the lowest status in the home. Kitchens were often relegated to the smallest, dirtiest, and least ventilated areas.
Here is how Qian's father introduced her to North American cuisine:
Ba Ba explained that there was no dog meat, that it was just what the Americans called "pizza".
And this is her reaction:
The food we ate filled us up quickly, cheese, dairy being things we had rarely eaten before...Eating American food was like gulping down giant and instant gratifying bubbles of air.
The constant comparison to life in China and life in America becomes ad nauseam.
Should we go back to Zhong Guo? Yes, of course, always. China was home and America smelled like pee.
Where in Zhong Guo we welcomed guests and gave away extras, we now had no food to spare.
I spent my time in the classroom going through my memory's catalog of delicious meals I'd had in Zhong Guo.
Why were we expected to speak English perfectly while praising Americans for even the clumsiest dribble of Chinese.
And there is the awful role models she witnessed from her parents. Her mother is not averse to spitting in the food for a customer she is serving in a restaurant:
...spat in the dish - so what? she huffed as we walked down Division Street. "they can serve one customer leftovers from another's plate, but I can't spit in some bastard's food. Did they ask me why I did it? They don't give one shit about me." or her routine habit of "instead of turning the handle and rinsing the mug with water, Ma Ma spat into the mug three times and turned it to move her spit around... before making tea for her boss.
Or her mama flushing "baby mice down the toilet" in front of her child.
Her father, on the other hand, unleashes fury and abuse to a cat. And subject his daughter to the most nauseating joke with his unflushed stink toilet while snickering at his supposed prank.
This young girl displays horrid behaviour herself especially with the other children at school where she describes herself as "the brain, the bully, the tomboy." She later sums up her actions via this example:
...she was also so easygoing and self-effacing that she made it impossible for me not to punch down at her, in hopes of lifting myself into the upper social echelon.
God, Gloria, you don't even know what R and B is? How much of a loser are you? The cruelty came out before I recognized my own voice. And to think that she herself could not explain what R&B is - what a bold audacious little girl? Makes one wonders what that competitive streak has unleashed in the adult version.
Summarily this book provides a glimpse at the life of people who chooses to go to North America outside of the normal immigration channels. Put succinctly, the author describes it thus:
undocumented life, fear was gaseous...
The novel outlines the hardships of this family as they struggle with menial jobs ( sweat shops and Laundromats...) while living in constant fear. Some parts of the novel are ambiguous, the family continues to go to McDonald's with Lao Jim, a customer the mother met at the hair salon where she works and who she describes as a pervert. Baffling too is the fact that a nine year old is fascinated with biographies of Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Thurgood Marshall alongside her fascination with Sweet Valley High and the Babysitter's Club books.
Despite the hardships described for this family, I was somehow left bereft of feelings. I can understand how difficult it is for new immigrants adjusting to a new language and culture while trying to carve out a living. Hopefully in the end, decency and goodwill will prevail with all (including newcomers and those with birthrights) but mainly may all newcomers embrace the country which accepts them with gratitude and a deep commitment to preserve the richness and goodness of the beautiful country.
Two stars for a novel described as a memoir but disappointingly captures a small section of a life lived.
Another flaw about this book is that the bulk of it focuses on a limited time period when Qian was young and was part of an illegal (I suppose I should be using the euphemism - undocumented) family from China living in New York. Omitted is her life in Canada, her life as a law student, a divorce which is mentioned in passing in her acknowledgements, and essentially what transpired beyond the sixth grade.
Many chapters and words are devoted to her wonderful memories of China and her lament about the hardships the family is facing in New York. I must admit that while reading, I thought - why don't you all just return - but then I tamper my thoughts that those are the perspectives of a very young child. Despite her unfavourable comparisons, I did glean a bit more of the Chinese culture over above what I learnt from visiting China, my own wonderful Chinese friends, and of course, books. For example:
Chinese kitchens were female spaces so they shared with outhouses the lowest status in the home. Kitchens were often relegated to the smallest, dirtiest, and least ventilated areas.
Here is how Qian's father introduced her to North American cuisine:
Ba Ba explained that there was no dog meat, that it was just what the Americans called "pizza".
And this is her reaction:
The food we ate filled us up quickly, cheese, dairy being things we had rarely eaten before...Eating American food was like gulping down giant and instant gratifying bubbles of air.
The constant comparison to life in China and life in America becomes ad nauseam.
Should we go back to Zhong Guo? Yes, of course, always. China was home and America smelled like pee.
Where in Zhong Guo we welcomed guests and gave away extras, we now had no food to spare.
I spent my time in the classroom going through my memory's catalog of delicious meals I'd had in Zhong Guo.
Why were we expected to speak English perfectly while praising Americans for even the clumsiest dribble of Chinese.
And there is the awful role models she witnessed from her parents. Her mother is not averse to spitting in the food for a customer she is serving in a restaurant:
...spat in the dish - so what? she huffed as we walked down Division Street. "they can serve one customer leftovers from another's plate, but I can't spit in some bastard's food. Did they ask me why I did it? They don't give one shit about me." or her routine habit of "instead of turning the handle and rinsing the mug with water, Ma Ma spat into the mug three times and turned it to move her spit around... before making tea for her boss.
Or her mama flushing "baby mice down the toilet" in front of her child.
Her father, on the other hand, unleashes fury and abuse to a cat. And subject his daughter to the most nauseating joke with his unflushed stink toilet while snickering at his supposed prank.
This young girl displays horrid behaviour herself especially with the other children at school where she describes herself as "the brain, the bully, the tomboy." She later sums up her actions via this example:
...she was also so easygoing and self-effacing that she made it impossible for me not to punch down at her, in hopes of lifting myself into the upper social echelon.
God, Gloria, you don't even know what R and B is? How much of a loser are you? The cruelty came out before I recognized my own voice. And to think that she herself could not explain what R&B is - what a bold audacious little girl? Makes one wonders what that competitive streak has unleashed in the adult version.
Summarily this book provides a glimpse at the life of people who chooses to go to North America outside of the normal immigration channels. Put succinctly, the author describes it thus:
undocumented life, fear was gaseous...
The novel outlines the hardships of this family as they struggle with menial jobs ( sweat shops and Laundromats...) while living in constant fear. Some parts of the novel are ambiguous, the family continues to go to McDonald's with Lao Jim, a customer the mother met at the hair salon where she works and who she describes as a pervert. Baffling too is the fact that a nine year old is fascinated with biographies of Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Thurgood Marshall alongside her fascination with Sweet Valley High and the Babysitter's Club books.
Despite the hardships described for this family, I was somehow left bereft of feelings. I can understand how difficult it is for new immigrants adjusting to a new language and culture while trying to carve out a living. Hopefully in the end, decency and goodwill will prevail with all (including newcomers and those with birthrights) but mainly may all newcomers embrace the country which accepts them with gratitude and a deep commitment to preserve the richness and goodness of the beautiful country.
Two stars for a novel described as a memoir but disappointingly captures a small section of a life lived.
April 16, 2023
Beautiful Country is a memoir of Qian Wang's experience as a child coming to living in the USA undocumented. We read of the struggles to learn the language, be a part of a community and having to parent her parent. A very interesting read.
September 23, 2021
Qin Julia Wang's Beautiful Country is truly a one-of-a-kind memoir and I couldn't recommend it more to everyone who wants to learn more about immigrant narratives. Following the footsteps of authors such as Patricia Engel's latest novel, Infinite Country, this memoir moved me. As a young girl, I could relate to Wang's love for reading books in the library (and the fear of book stores), her struggles to adjust to life in the US after her parents were from China. While she does not explicitly delve deeper into the political environment that her family faced during the Cultural Revolution, it is clear that the socio-political environment has affected her worldview.
The most touching moments in this novel are surrounding Wang and her endearing relationship with her mother. Throughout the memoir, it is clear that Wang sees her mother as an inspiration, who in spite of facing numerous challenges, is both resilient and resourceful in her nature. The precarity of Wang's situation was moving - not knowing if she could ever be deported if it was found that her family was illegally staying in the US. I think what I loved the most about this book is that it touches on the question of how we see refugees/migrants in our current political climate globally. There are currently debates on the placement of Afgan refugees, which is causing debates on national media sphere.
Overall, I loved Wang's memoir and would happily teach it as well!
Thank you to @Netgalley and the author for providing me with a digital arc of the memoir!
The most touching moments in this novel are surrounding Wang and her endearing relationship with her mother. Throughout the memoir, it is clear that Wang sees her mother as an inspiration, who in spite of facing numerous challenges, is both resilient and resourceful in her nature. The precarity of Wang's situation was moving - not knowing if she could ever be deported if it was found that her family was illegally staying in the US. I think what I loved the most about this book is that it touches on the question of how we see refugees/migrants in our current political climate globally. There are currently debates on the placement of Afgan refugees, which is causing debates on national media sphere.
Overall, I loved Wang's memoir and would happily teach it as well!
Thank you to @Netgalley and the author for providing me with a digital arc of the memoir!
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