Beautiful Country: A Memoir of an Undocumented Childhood

I received a free electronic ARC of this excellent memoir from Netgalley, Qian Julie Wang, and Doubleday, publisher. Thank you all for sharing this fine work with me. I have read Beautiful Country of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work. We are living in an age of massive immigration. Half the world seems to be out there looking for a home. Many have found respite in the USA, people we are glad to welcome to our world. Many we have turned away, if only temporarily. I cannot imagine the stress involved in country shopping, most with small children. Beautiful Country takes us through the process with young Qian Julie Wang. It makes it so much easier to sympathize and offer an extended hand when you understand the almost impossible process of getting here legally and to see the pain involved in being here illegally. We are a land of immigrants with room and hope to spare. We need to improve the process of validation, speed up the waiting time and make provision for families with young children to stay together throughout the whole process. We should continue to be a nation of immigrants. New ones, too. It is, after all, who we are

China, Chinese-culture, Chinese-customs, Chinese-languages, Canada, Brooklyn, narrative, nonfiction, immigrants, library, Mandarin, undocumented, family-dynamics, ambitions, culture-of-fear, sweat-shops, contemporary***** She is the unsuspecting passenger in her parents' journey and it takes many years for her to make it her own. In China her parents were respected professors, but in Brooklyn and NYC Chinatown they are *ignorant* because they have so little English, do not speak Cantonese, and must work in the sweatshops for little money and in such awful conditions. But for a girl of seven it is all incomprehensible and lonely. Even after she teaches herself to read English and then is introduced to the wonder that is libraries. Not all of the problems are caused by others or even their own beliefs about luck, as a major hurdle occurs when mother becomes gravely ill. But mother is also an overcomer and is able to return to academia when Qian is just starting middle school and they resettle into the warm welcome that is Canada. Spoiler: Qian does go to Yale law. The last Chinese immigrant I've read about is Patriot Number One three years ago. I requested and received a free temporary e-book copy from Doubleday Books via NetGalley. Thank you! I will be getting the audio.

Great read for me