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4.25 AVERAGE
4.25 AVERAGE
This memoir reads like fiction. Absolutely crushing at times to read.
I loved this book. Qian’s prose are lyrical and vulnerable. She is such an observant narrator. Her questions at a young age are inquisitive and perceptive, and I hope to hold her in my heart when my students ask similar questions. Qian’s family’s experiences shine a light on the fractured and inequitable systems that immigrants face in this country, “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” I will be thinking about this book for a long time. Highly recommend.
Qian is an incredible writer with a powerful story of living as an immigrant in America. I thoroughly enjoyed this, not because the story is happy but because her writing is so captivating.
Such a great memoir. What's particularly interesting about it is she focuses on her life ages 7-10--I feel we don't often get memoirs that focus intensely on childhood. I thought it was really well written, and this gave me a look into a life that I otherwise wouldn't have the ability to read about.
Reading Qian Julie Wang’s memoir Beautiful Country made me appreciate my siblings even more than I already do. It wasn’t until I read this book that I realized just how much having a sibling by my side made the whole immigration process easier - I was never alone, not when the kids spat on me for “speaking a different language”, or when I had to walk into a different classroom, yet again, without understanding a word anyone was saying around me. During all of the adaptation to another country/people/language/culture, the trying to fit in, and never quite making it parts, I always had someone by my side who understood what I was going through, and why we just shut up and endured rather than said anything, but how we also resisted in our own way. Anyway, I absolutely loved reading Qian Julie Wang’s work, and while reading it my heart hurt thinking about how alone she was, navigating undocumented immigrant life in the US. And while my situation was a lot different, and a lot easier, it would have been so much harder if I hadn’t had my sister by my side.
Qian arrived in the US as a 7 year old in 1994, joining her father who had already been here for a while. They moved into a shared apartment, and while her parents worked in sweatshops and other hard, but underpaid work, Qian started school. No one at school speaks Mandarin properly, and no one really helps her learn English so she takes refuge in the library, first the school one, then the public one, and teaches herself how to communicate in English. I related to this so much, as this is also how I learnt Dutch and then French in ways that no teacher or school could ever teach me. Libraries will always, always have a special place in my heart. Qian’s family live in poverty, and Qian is often left to figure things out alone (free school meals, subway, school life in general), and her memories of hunger break my heart, because it is not something that any child should feel, and because it is still to this day something that many children endure in this country. As the months and then the years go by, Qian finds herself playing different roles for her parents, watching their relationship deteriorate under the stress of immigrant life in the US, while trying to figure out what she wants from her life, despite the fact that no one believes she will go anywhere.
There is a lot of darkness in this memoir, but Qian’s life is not darkness (if that makes sense?) - it is not an easy read, but it is a must read. I have my own personal immigration stories, and I have read many other immigration stories, but Qian’s is the first story of a child immigrating to the US from China that I have ever read, and I am very grateful for everything I have learned by reading her story. Qian’s writing is completely honest, and this honesty allows us to see all layers of her story, and understand many of her decisions. As an adult my first reaction was shock when I realized that she was going to hide the hand that she hurt in a fall, but then I remembered the amount of times I did something similar, to avoid bringing attention to myself, to avoid having to navigate finding a doctor or a dentist by myself, to avoid having to do something I was too young to do alone, and I suddenly saw myself there, beside her. People are quick to judge immigrants and certain decisions we make as children and adults, but until you have lived it yourself, you really have no idea.
Thank you Qian for your beautiful and heartbreaking memoir - I hope many, many, many people read it.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.
Qian arrived in the US as a 7 year old in 1994, joining her father who had already been here for a while. They moved into a shared apartment, and while her parents worked in sweatshops and other hard, but underpaid work, Qian started school. No one at school speaks Mandarin properly, and no one really helps her learn English so she takes refuge in the library, first the school one, then the public one, and teaches herself how to communicate in English. I related to this so much, as this is also how I learnt Dutch and then French in ways that no teacher or school could ever teach me. Libraries will always, always have a special place in my heart. Qian’s family live in poverty, and Qian is often left to figure things out alone (free school meals, subway, school life in general), and her memories of hunger break my heart, because it is not something that any child should feel, and because it is still to this day something that many children endure in this country. As the months and then the years go by, Qian finds herself playing different roles for her parents, watching their relationship deteriorate under the stress of immigrant life in the US, while trying to figure out what she wants from her life, despite the fact that no one believes she will go anywhere.
There is a lot of darkness in this memoir, but Qian’s life is not darkness (if that makes sense?) - it is not an easy read, but it is a must read. I have my own personal immigration stories, and I have read many other immigration stories, but Qian’s is the first story of a child immigrating to the US from China that I have ever read, and I am very grateful for everything I have learned by reading her story. Qian’s writing is completely honest, and this honesty allows us to see all layers of her story, and understand many of her decisions. As an adult my first reaction was shock when I realized that she was going to hide the hand that she hurt in a fall, but then I remembered the amount of times I did something similar, to avoid bringing attention to myself, to avoid having to navigate finding a doctor or a dentist by myself, to avoid having to do something I was too young to do alone, and I suddenly saw myself there, beside her. People are quick to judge immigrants and certain decisions we make as children and adults, but until you have lived it yourself, you really have no idea.
Thank you Qian for your beautiful and heartbreaking memoir - I hope many, many, many people read it.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.
inspiring
medium-paced
Immigrant memoir about a Chinese girl who moves to the U.S. when she's seven. It covers her first few years in the U.S., when the family is poor, unable to get anything but menial jobs, never has enough food, is always afraid of being deported and thus avoids doctors, police, and other authority figures.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
I adored this book. Be warned, it’s sad and painful. But there is also so much to love. Wang does an amazing job of describing her childhood - the nuances of loneliness, despair, guilt, playfulness, longing, and resourcefulness. An a native Brooklynite who grew up in the 90’s, it was an incredibly enlightening experience to learn about the Chinese immigrant experience in New York. It’s so painful to hear about how much of a struggle it was, but so important to know. Thank you to Qian Julie Wang for sharing her story.