It wasn’t until the discourse of the 2016 election, which took place just six months after I became a naturalized US citizen, that I discovered I had a newfound power and thus a responsibility to share my story, that at that juncture of my life, I was making an actual decision to stay quiet-a privilege that millions of undocumented immigrants did not have. Even so, I figured it was impossible, because I lived under messaging that I was to hide my past and remain ashamed of it. "I'd always dreamed about writing this book because, although I grew up learning English in library books, I never found a book that depicted characters who looked like me and lived in the way my parents and I did. 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. 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. 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.īut 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. 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. Instead of laughing at her jokes, they fight constantly, taking out the stress of their new life on one another. In Chinatown, Qian’s parents labor in sweatshops. 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. 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 Chinese, the word for America, Mei Guo, translates directly to “beautiful country”. Consider this remarkable memoir a new classic." ( Publishers Weekly, starred review)
An incandescent memoir from an astonishing new talent, Beautiful Country puts listeners in the shoes of an undocumented child living in poverty in the richest country in the world.
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