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A review by theveronicareview
Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
In Beautiful Country, Qian Julie Wang shares her time living in New York after she and her parents immigrated from China. Her memoir covers the limited and filtered view she had of America - "Mei Guo" (Beautiful Country) - as an illegal immigrant (after they outstayed their VISA). Her family's difficulty in making a stable living and their constant fear of being discovered impacted what they had access to, how the fear influenced their everyday decisions, and how their circumstances influenced the way Qian interacted with and perceives the world around her. This memoir is beyond thought-provoking. I do not have the words to do it justice.
We all view our countries through a filter - whether it's the one you grew up with, the one you were taught in school, or the one you develop if your worldview expands. After reading Beautiful Country, I came to find how blissfully ignorant I've been, emphasized by the fact that Qian and I seemed to have been children in America around the same time. This parallel created a needed chasm in how I now perceive my childhood and my life. Qian and I watched the same shows, wanted the same toys, found solace in similar books and in writing. Picturing myself at that age, what I worried about - the Jansport backpack I couldn't have or the book report I had due - and how I let those trivial aspects dictate my days. Whereas Qian learned English on her own and before her parents, was a rock for her mother, made sacrifices for her parents, worked in a sweatshop, looked for furniture off the street, avoided authority, welcomed verbal abuse from her parents - and still kept her spunky nature and sense of humor. Her parents provided her with Canadian citizenship and she still sought the US after the traumatic introduction she experienced in New York. Her ability to share such a raw picture of her early life, her ability to place a harsh lens even on herself, and her drive to now work as a civil rights lawyer in New York are clearly attributed to the strength she seems to have exhibited all her life.
This is a book that I would recommend to anyone and everyone - anyone living in the US, anyone working in public service, teachers, parents. Everyone. The experiences Qian and her family went through are unfathomable to so many of us, and that is just one of the many reasons why this book is so important.
We all view our countries through a filter - whether it's the one you grew up with, the one you were taught in school, or the one you develop if your worldview expands. After reading Beautiful Country, I came to find how blissfully ignorant I've been, emphasized by the fact that Qian and I seemed to have been children in America around the same time. This parallel created a needed chasm in how I now perceive my childhood and my life. Qian and I watched the same shows, wanted the same toys, found solace in similar books and in writing. Picturing myself at that age, what I worried about - the Jansport backpack I couldn't have or the book report I had due - and how I let those trivial aspects dictate my days. Whereas Qian learned English on her own and before her parents, was a rock for her mother, made sacrifices for her parents, worked in a sweatshop, looked for furniture off the street, avoided authority, welcomed verbal abuse from her parents - and still kept her spunky nature and sense of humor. Her parents provided her with Canadian citizenship and she still sought the US after the traumatic introduction she experienced in New York. Her ability to share such a raw picture of her early life, her ability to place a harsh lens even on herself, and her drive to now work as a civil rights lawyer in New York are clearly attributed to the strength she seems to have exhibited all her life.
This is a book that I would recommend to anyone and everyone - anyone living in the US, anyone working in public service, teachers, parents. Everyone. The experiences Qian and her family went through are unfathomable to so many of us, and that is just one of the many reasons why this book is so important.