This is a very specific snapshot into a moment of time: New York City in the 1980s, through the lens of this undocumented family. You mustn’t do anything that will risk the security of the family. To avoid cops, to hide yourself away inside of your own body. I remember there was this moment in which Wang describes herself as wanting to smile and be cheerful when she sees other Chinese people in the streets of New York City, to speak Mandarin to them, but then she, too, is slowly worn down into acting a certain way in public. It’s not obvious on the surface, but as you keep reading (or listening, if you have an audiobook) there’s this undertone of being stuck in-between cultures. At first, in the beginning, I was wondering what made this stand out, but as we got into the nitty gritty experiences as an undocumented Chinese-American immigrant family, I slowly began to understand what made this memoir in particular special. Wow, I’ve said a lot already! Let’s dive into this review.įirst of all: wow, what a powerful memoir. It’s so refined, the mark of someone who was born to be a writer and has cultivated their craft. The author is a lawyer by trade, but is a fellow bookworm, which shows in her prose. And, to be honest, I’m glad that I came in blind because it allowed me to have my socks blown out of the water. I should’ve read the premise or book blurb, or even the reviews about it on The New York Times, but I went in completely blind. I will also admit, I knew nothing about the premise of this memoir going in, and had originally assumed that it was going to be just another immigrant memoir. So I borrowed the audiobook, and man did I devour this book. That was insane to me, especially because it had just come out and most of the time when things come out, there’s a months long waiting list just to get a copy of it. I first read about it on The New York Times, but what compelled me to actually get to it was the fact that I saw it on Libby ready to be borrowed right here. I’ve heard so much about this book, and it literally just came out.

A beautiful country by wang