EP #64: Memoir of Growing Up Undocumented in America with NYC Best Seller Qian Julie Wang.

Lisa is solo and is joined by Qian Julie Wang, author of
Beautiful Country: A Memoir.  Here is the book
description: 


In Chinese, the word for America, Mei Guo, translates directly to
“beautiful country.” Yet when seven-year-old Qian arrives in New
York City in 1994 full of curiosity, she is overwhelmed by
crushing fear and scarcity. In China, Qian’s parents were
professors; in America, her family is “illegal” and it will
require all the determination and small joys they can muster to
survive.

 In Chinatown, Qian’s parents labor in sweatshops. Instead
of laughing at her jokes, they fight constantly, taking out the
stress of their new life on one another. Shunned by her
classmates and teachers for her limited English, Qian takes
refuge in the library and masters the language through books,
coming to think of The Berenstain Bears as her first American
friends. And where there is delight to be found, Qian relishes
it: her first bite of gloriously greasy pizza, weekly “shopping
days,” when Qian finds small treasures in the trash lining
Brooklyn’s streets, and a magical Christmas visit to Rockefeller
Center—confirmation that the New York City she saw in movies does
exist after all.

 But then Qian’s headstrong Ma Ma collapses, revealing an
illness that she has kept secret for months for fear of the cost
and scrutiny of a doctor’s visit. As Ba Ba retreats further
inward, Qian has little to hold onto beyond his constant refrain:
Whatever happens, say that you were born here, that you’ve always
lived here.

 Inhabiting her childhood perspective with exquisite lyric
clarity and unforgettable charm and strength, Qian Julie Wang has
penned an essential American story about a family fracturing
under the weight of invisibility, and a girl coming of age in the
shadows, who never stops seeking the light.