In 1994 when she was seven years old, the author arrived in this country with her mother to join her father who had arrived two years earlier. They knew no English and their visitor visas would soon expire. This book describes the horror of the five years they spent in New York City, barely surviving until her mother took the initiative to get them to Canada where they could receive the support they needed to live decently. Her parents had been professors in China, but while living illegally in New York, they were always hungry and worked sweatshop jobs.
The description of the room they rented when Qian and her mother first arrived was dramatic. It was a single room for the three of them and they shared the bathroom and kitchen with all the others in the three-story house. All the inhabitants were new immigrants who barely had enough money for the rent. One evening her father Ba Ba arrived home with an oddly shaped bag. When she opened it Qian was overwhelmed by the strong smell which Ba Ba explained was not dog meat, but pizza. After taking a bite, she declared this a terrifying, amazing, delicious substance. One slice was dinner for the three of them.
Qian and her family spoke Mandarin, while most Chinese immigrants they encountered spoke Cantonese. Qian’s isolation when she began school landed her in a special needs classroom where she was able to teach herself English using children’s books. When she was placed in a classroom, a student who spoke Mandarin was assigned to translate for her which she did reluctantly. So many things seemed to go wrong for her. She desperately needed to go to the bathroom and didn’t realize she was in the boys’ restroom until they began laughing at her. She had many stories illustrating her isolation and describing her experience from the perspective of a child from another culture. In fact, I found there were a few too many of those stories.
After an incident when Ba Ba slapped Ma Ma, she decided it was time to leave, and she had done the work to prepare, including learning to drive. She picked up an unsuspecting Qian after school and told her she had worked with a lawyer so they would have green cards when they arrived in Canada and that Ba Ba had refused to leave. A friend who lived on Long Island took them in for the night and the three of them drove to Canada the next day.
Ba Ba was reunited with them and ultimately Qian buried the memories of herself in those terrible years. She returned to the US, attended Swathmore and later Yale Law School. Her writing about this time and her subsequent recovering of that little girl was articulate and moving.
This was described as a Read with Jenna Pick, which it turns out, means it was chosen by Jenna Bush Hager for her Today Show bookclub.
Qian Julie Wang, Beautiful Country, Doubleday, 2021, 305 pages (I read the kindle version). Available in the public library.