5/13/2023 0 Comments Beautiful country julieBut in Brooklyn, her mother lamented, “All these Cantonese assume that if you speak Mandarin you’re a farmer from Fuzhou.” Wang’s mother got a job sewing in a sweatshop, where “there was no day or night there was only work.” In Beijing, Wang’s mother was a published professor who spoke Mandarin, the language of intellectuals. She describes childhood trenchantly in Beautiful Country, allowing readers to feel her anger, longing, loneliness and fear-and to observe her parents’ desperation. One classmate referred to Wang’s family not as “low-income” but “no-income.” Her world was simultaneously frightening and normal as she sat listening to scuttling cockroaches with her parents nearby. Her hunger was regularly so intense that she broke into cold sweats-which, according to her Ma Ma, meant Wang was growing and getting stronger. From ages 7 to 12, Qian Julie Wang lived as an undocumented immigrant in Brooklyn, New York.
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