Beautiful country: a memoir
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Publisher:
Varies, see individual formats and editions
Pub. Date:
Varies, see individual formats and editions
Language:
English
Description
"Beautiful Country is the real deal. Heartrending, unvarnished, and powerfully courageous, this account of growing up undocumented in America will never leave you."--Gish Jen, author of The Resisters Ba Ba told me this and I in turn carried it in my heart: so long as we didn't stake claim to what wasn't ours--the things, our rooms, America, this beautiful country--we would be okay. An incandescent and heartrending memoir about Qian Julie Wang's five years living undocumented after immigrating with her parents from China to New York City in 1994. In Chinese the word for the United States, Mei Guo, translates directly to "beautiful country," but when seven-year-old Qian is plucked from her warm and happy childhood surrounded by extended family in China, shefinds a world of crushing fear and poverty instead. Unable to speak English at first, Qian is isolated and disregarded, put into special education classes because she doesn't speak the language and humiliated by teachers and classmates when she strugglesto pay attention because of hunger or exhaustion. She encounters racism, and people of other races, for the first time, shocked at where her family fits in comparison to their status as educated elites in China. After school she works shifts alongside her mother in Chinatown sweatshops. There is so much about Qian's new home that doesn't make sense, but the rules of survival are drilled into her head: If you see a policeman, you must run in the other direction. If anyone asks--or even if they don't--youtell them you were born here. Do as you're told or we could be separated forever. Understanding impliclity the toll this has taken on her parents, Qian tries desperately to cheer them up and mediate their increasingly heated arguments, certain that if sheis good enough, she can hold the family together. In remarkable, unsentimental prose Wang channels her childhood perspective, illuminating the cruelty and indignity of America's immigration system, while also crafting a narrative of resilience from her family's small moments of joy: their first slice of pizza, "shopping days" when the family would unearth unlikely treasures in Brooklyn's trash, and the necessary escape she found in books at the local library. Searing and unforgettable, Beautiful Countryis an essential book about the cost of making a home in a hostile land from an astonishing new talent"--
Subjects
Subjects
Autobiographies
Biographies
Biography & Autobiography
Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.) -- Biography
Childhood and youth
Chinese Americans
Chinese Americans -- New York (State) -- New York -- Biography
Family
Family & Relationships
Illegal immigration
Illegal immigration -- New York (State) -- New York -- Biography
Immigrants
Immigrants -- New York (State) -- New York -- Biography
Large type books
Nonfiction
Shijiazhuang Shi (China) -- Biography
Wang, Qian Julie
Wang, Qian Julie, -- 1987- -- Childhood and youth
Wang, Qian Julie, -- 1987- -- Family
Biographies
Biography & Autobiography
Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.) -- Biography
Childhood and youth
Chinese Americans
Chinese Americans -- New York (State) -- New York -- Biography
Family
Family & Relationships
Illegal immigration
Illegal immigration -- New York (State) -- New York -- Biography
Immigrants
Immigrants -- New York (State) -- New York -- Biography
Large type books
Nonfiction
Shijiazhuang Shi (China) -- Biography
Wang, Qian Julie
Wang, Qian Julie, -- 1987- -- Childhood and youth
Wang, Qian Julie, -- 1987- -- Family
More Details
ISBN:
9780385547215
9780593455531
9780593460016
9780593455531
9780593460016
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Grouping Information
Grouped Work ID | b6dc1a8a-831b-3875-d420-892dbd865ac1 |
---|---|
Grouping Title | beautiful country |
Grouping Author | qian julie wang |
Grouping Category | book |
Grouping Language | English (eng) |
Last Grouping Update | 2024-04-15 22:18:01PM |
Last Indexed | 2024-04-15 22:55:50PM |
Solr Fields
accelerated_reader_point_value
0
accelerated_reader_reading_level
0
author
Wang, Qian Julie, 1987-
author_display
Wang, Qian Julie
available_at_eh
East Hampton Public Library
Online OverDrive Collection
Online OverDrive Collection
detailed_location_eh
East Hampton Adult Nonfiction
Online OverDrive Collection
Online OverDrive Collection
display_description
"Beautiful Country is the real deal. Heartrending, unvarnished, and powerfully courageous, this account of growing up undocumented in America will never leave you."--Gish Jen, author of The Resisters Ba Ba told me this and I in turn carried it in my heart: so long as we didn't stake claim to what wasn't ours--the things, our rooms, America, this beautiful country--we would be okay. An incandescent and heartrending memoir about Qian Julie Wang's five years living undocumented after immigrating with her parents from China to New York City in 1994. In Chinese the word for the United States, Mei Guo, translates directly to "beautiful country," but when seven-year-old Qian is plucked from her warm and happy childhood surrounded by extended family in China, shefinds a world of crushing fear and poverty instead. Unable to speak English at first, Qian is isolated and disregarded, put into special education classes because she doesn't speak the language and humiliated by teachers and classmates when she strugglesto pay attention because of hunger or exhaustion. She encounters racism, and people of other races, for the first time, shocked at where her family fits in comparison to their status as educated elites in China. After school she works shifts alongside her mother in Chinatown sweatshops. There is so much about Qian's new home that doesn't make sense, but the rules of survival are drilled into her head: If you see a policeman, you must run in the other direction. If anyone asks--or even if they don't--youtell them you were born here. Do as you're told or we could be separated forever. Understanding impliclity the toll this has taken on her parents, Qian tries desperately to cheer them up and mediate their increasingly heated arguments, certain that if sheis good enough, she can hold the family together. In remarkable, unsentimental prose Wang channels her childhood perspective, illuminating the cruelty and indignity of America's immigration system, while also crafting a narrative of resilience from her family's small moments of joy: their first slice of pizza, "shopping days" when the family would unearth unlikely treasures in Brooklyn's trash, and the necessary escape she found in books at the local library. Searing and unforgettable, Beautiful Countryis an essential book about the cost of making a home in a hostile land from an astonishing new talent"--
format_category_eh
Audio Books
Books
eBook
Books
eBook
format_eh
Book
Large Print
eAudiobook
Large Print
eAudiobook
id
b6dc1a8a-831b-3875-d420-892dbd865ac1
isbn
9780385547215
9780593455531
9780593460016
9780593455531
9780593460016
itype_eh
ADULT BOOK
ADULT LARGE PRINT
LEAP 28 Day Book
ADULT LARGE PRINT
LEAP 28 Day Book
last_indexed
2024-04-16T04:55:50.961Z
lexile_score
-1
literary_form
Non Fiction
literary_form_full
Non Fiction
local_callnumber_eh
974.71 WAN
Online OverDrive
Online OverDrive
owning_library_eh
East Hampton Public Library
East Hampton Public Library Online
East Hampton Public Library Online
owning_location_eh
East Hampton Public Library
Online OverDrive Collection
Online OverDrive Collection
primary_isbn
9780385547215
publishDate
2021
publisher
Books on Tape
Doubleday
Random House Large Print
Doubleday
Random House Large Print
recordtype
grouped_work
subject_facet
Autobiographies
Biographies
Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.) -- Biography
Chinese Americans -- New York (State) -- New York -- Biography
Illegal immigration -- New York (State) -- New York -- Biography
Immigrants -- New York (State) -- New York -- Biography
Large type books
Shijiazhuang Shi (China) -- Biography
Wang, Qian Julie, -- 1987- -- Childhood and youth
Wang, Qian Julie, -- 1987- -- Family
Biographies
Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.) -- Biography
Chinese Americans -- New York (State) -- New York -- Biography
Illegal immigration -- New York (State) -- New York -- Biography
Immigrants -- New York (State) -- New York -- Biography
Large type books
Shijiazhuang Shi (China) -- Biography
Wang, Qian Julie, -- 1987- -- Childhood and youth
Wang, Qian Julie, -- 1987- -- Family
title_display
Beautiful country : a memoir
title_full
Beautiful Country A Memoir
Beautiful country : a memoir / Qian Julie Wang
Beautiful country: a memoir / by Qian Julie Wang
Beautiful country : a memoir / Qian Julie Wang
Beautiful country: a memoir / by Qian Julie Wang
title_short
Beautiful country
title_sub
a memoir
topic_facet
Biography & Autobiography
Childhood and youth
Chinese Americans
Family
Family & Relationships
Illegal immigration
Immigrants
Large type books
Nonfiction
Wang, Qian Julie
Childhood and youth
Chinese Americans
Family
Family & Relationships
Illegal immigration
Immigrants
Large type books
Nonfiction
Wang, Qian Julie
Solr Details Tables
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record_details
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