Beautiful Country: A Read with Jenna Pick: A Memoir of an Undocumented Childhood

A beautifully rendered book. It brought both laughter and tears. It effectively and movingly conveys the experiences of Asian immigrants that will shock, sadden, and amuse you too.

Definitely one of the best memoirs I have read. My heart goes out to the struggles and very poor treatment her family was subjected to when they first came to the U.S. Unfortunately, the trauma that resulted from it impacted their lives for decades after. Hiding their past from others, changing their names, and fighting immigration left an empty hole in their hearts and a feeling of not belonging. Qian is slowly making peace with her past now. I pray she finds happiness and contentment so she can move on and enjoy the rest of her life.

Qian qian, a person of intelligence, wit, honesty and deep insight - the author - wrote a memoir I will long remember. At times terribly painful, often humorous, but never failing to enlighten the reader about the unique suffering of the undocumented, hungry and terrifying life of many immigrants. A remarkable story that I am so glad Wang chose to write. Thank you!

When I picked this book it was because I wanted to learn about other cultures. I wasn't sure if I'd like it but something told me that I would and boy did I ever. I often compared how I grew up as a dark skin black girl to that of Qian's. Being different is what I could relate to but it also showed me how some immigrants are ignored and treated especially if you're illegal. It was very eye opening. Qian dealt with things as a child that I even as a grownup will never know. It brought back fond memories of feeling at home in libraries and devouring the Sweet Valley High books as I too kept my nose in a book to escape. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I liked looking up how to properly say Qian along with translating the phrases not in English. I will be looking forward to her next creation.

Wang tells the harrowing story of her coming to the United States from China in 1994 at age 7 with her mother. Her father was already in the US, leaving during China's Cultural Revolution. Because their visas expired, they lived in the shadows in squalor and constant fear of being arrested and deported. Wang was told to say that she was born in the US if ever asked. Though professionals in China, the adults worked in low-paying jobs in terrible conditions, sometimes taking Wang with them. My heart broke again and again for this family and this little girl, who was placed in a special ed classroom because of the language barrier and basically ignored. She taught herself to read using the picture books in the room. She succeeded in school and developed friendships there, which only amplified how different she was from her schoolmates. Many times, she was forced to be the adult in the room, when her mother became deathly ill, when her parents fought, when she had to find her way in an entirely different culture all alone. When she expressed her dream of becoming a lawyer to help immigrants, NO ONE--no parent, friend, teacher, or stranger--encouraged her. Yet, she did it. Her intelligence, scrappiness, and incredible inner strength helped her through. I hope Wang writes a sequel, so we get more detail about her college and early professional life, as well as the lives of her parents.

This book resonated with me as a child of poverty, I lived every realization, how revelatory each time I realized other people did not struggle as my family did. I imagined living with other families and marveled at the way they seemed to enjoy each other. I saw lack and lost dreams destroy my parents and watched the joy leach out of them year by year. Amazing book though hard to read, especially the parts about Marilyn which are the saddest.

The author describes the trauma that she and her family experiences as undocumented Chinese immigrants in the US. It reminds us of the suffering of all those are undocumented and highlights that we are all humans

This book was a selection for a book club. It is a true story of an Asian family living illegally in the US and how they cope with many problems to overcome. It is sad but enlightening.

While I'm delighted that Qian Julie Wang after a lots of difficulties moving from China at 7 to this country , then being in Canada and then back here , that she wound up eventually going to Yale Law School. She married another lawyer, Marc, and they're partners in law and life, all that's great, I'm delighted that things eventually turned very well for her, but I didn't like the book. .I thought the book was a confused, badly written mess, where she leap frog from Chinta to here and back and forth . Even though I wanted to like the book, I found it very boring, the best part was the clearly written acknowledgments.

Insight into life as a young immigrant but experiences are similar to anyone who is bullied. No explanation or apology for why the family didn’t come to the US legally which would have been helpful context.

I don't normally read non fiction and many of the first reads are stinkers but this one is a real gem. Even though its a memoir it reads like a nkvdl. The writing grows increasingly beautiful and the last chapter is magnificent. I'm thankful Qian gave me a glimpse of what its like to be an immigrant. I do recommend this book.

The author's story is remarkable and after a slow start her book is engaging. However she plays up her impossible plight a bit too much and in parts it starts to seem tendentious and something approaching unbelievable. She indeed did suffer a lot. She worked, at least for a short time, in a sweat shop with her mother and didn't have enough to eat. No one should have to suffer like that, especially as a 7 year old. That she's accomplished what she has is noteworthy and great.Where she lost me a bit is that, although she was quick to acknowledge her woeful circumstances and how bad things were, she rarely acknowledged any good breaks. For example, the reader is reminded of her overwhelming poverty and lack of food constantly, and that seemed very plausible when she first got to America. However, clearly her family's plight got better over the course of the book (her father bought a car, her mother earned some sort of U.S. degree, etc.) but she kept going back to the fact she didn't have enough to eat. How is that possible? Were her parents purposely depriving her of food? She mentioned her mother would purchase lottery tickets every day at some point, but she still would go back to not getting enough to eat. Another issue: Very little about her parents makes sense. She paints them out to be highly superstitious, gamblers (at least her mother), and almost entirely unconcerned with school. If she didn't slip in that they were both professors in China you would have thought they were rural farmers and nearly illiterate and didn't care at all about education, literacy, math, etc. The reality is her mother was a math and computer science professor and had published multiple books. She was quick to mention that she taught her self to read, but then she slipped in that her father had taught her phonics and presumably the English alphabet. It sounds to me like her English professor father played a big role in her education. My point is that, although her life generally was terrible, she's lucky her parents were professors. It's OK to acknowledge that you're lucky in some ways even if your life otherwise is terrible. I suppose a bit of gratitude and acknowledging the role they played would have taken away from the hard luck tenor of the story (she's hungry, she's so smart but no one is helping her at all, etc.) she was trying to tell. The author went to Swarthmore (the #1 liberal arts school in US) and then Yale Law School (the #1 law school in the US) but there was not a word of thanks to anyone or anything for how she got there, although there was plenty of grousing about how different she was from her classmates. The one story she mentioned from Swarthmore was someone telling her that she's not a superstar or something along those lines.I was poor and raised by a parent who thought college was waste of time. Through chance and hard work, I ended up at Yale Law School as well. Most of the kids there came from privilege. But get this - they were also really smart, energetic, curious, hard working, and on the whole exceptional. Although it would be easy for me to dwell on all of the ways I was different from just about everyone there and whine about my lack of privilege, I was lucky to be there. Further once I graduated, I was now very clearly among the most privileged people in the world. Just because your life is hard or terrible at some stage does not mean you are a victim your entire life. The author is now among the top, say, .1% of all Americans. I think that warrants some acknowledgement.

I have read the book and listened to several interviews with Wang.While I have no doubt that she and her family had a hard time upon arrival in the U.S. and I am sure it was difficult living in the shadows fearing deportation, I am confused by the assertion that her story illustrates the fallacy of the American dream.She is a Yale Law grad and a partner in her own law firm. That seems rather successful to me. Could she have achieved this level of success in China - with a dissident uncle who was arrested and tortured and a father under watch to the point he felt he had to flee or face the same fate as his brother. And would she have been able to write a book trashing China - while living in China - and become even more successful? Somehow I doubt it.She talks about how much more open Canada was to her family. However, apparently her mother worked through a lawyer and petitioned Canada for legal entry as an educated person. Had they followed U.S. immigration rules and petitioned on the same basis, instead of illegally overstaying visas in the U.S., how do we know they would have been denied?At one point in one of her interviews, while talking about how books saved her, she says she identified with some of the characters. She specifically mentions Anne Frank and says she felt a kinship with her as she, herself, was "living in the shadows." While on some level, that may be somewhat true, it is jarring to hear her compare her childhood with a person confined to a room, never allowed to leave, living with the potential of - and finally actual - seizure and extermination.That comparison is even more disconcerting when, in the same interview, she says as a child she loved living in China where everyone looked like her, she had plenty of food, and there was no fear of lacking documents or punishment for same - all of which was so very different from the U.S. where she was constantly discriminated against, was nearly starving, and in constant fear of deportation. Um what, exactly was so bad about deportation if China was so much better than the U.S.? And how, exactly, did that compare to Ann Frank's fate? Now I get that as an adult, she may have realized that China was not the paradise she thought it was as a child, but in the interview, she is talking about her fear - as a child -of being sent back there.Also, while extolling Canada as so much better than the U.S. in terms of welcoming immigrants, I fail to understand - first why she didn't stay there since it was so much better and second, why she doesn't advise her current immigrant clients to go there. Could it be because many of her clients are here illegally without the skills and education her parents had and she knows full well they would not be successful in legal entry to Canada after all?I am glad she has made a success of her life. I am sorry she feels the need to trash the country that made that possible - and which continues to reward her in spite of said trashing.

I’am interested in learning about all cultures. Understanding who people are brings us closer together. As an immigrant, I understand the trials we face. I was fortunate to come with a visa. However, as hard as we work, white skin color always trump. I went to school and worked hard, yet white immigrants who did not finish high school have higher paying jobs than me. Quantity Qiana’s family story resonated with me and I wish we were more connected so that people don’t have to live in fear.

It seemed slow in the beginning but I had to remind myself it was a memoir. After about the 90th page I was fully invested in the story and enjoyed learning about her life, both the good and the bad. Everyone at my book club liked or loved it.

Such an important story that needed to be told. Book was enthralling and I couldn’t put it down. The writing was beautiful. Finished it in 2 days.As an American Chinese, I related so much. My first memory I experienced of racism is when someone called me “pancake face” on the playground. Telling the story of our traumas is important to fighting racism. The story of the man who let his dog attack the author (and was pleased about it) is painful but would otherwise go unsaid.I’m appalled by the negative reviews of this book, saying the story is unbelievable or criticizing her dad for having a gym membership when times were better for them. They were clearly missing the point of this story.I only wish I knew what happened with the authors mom at the end of the story! I hope she found fulfillment in the end.

On the positive side, I learned a great deal about the experiences of undocumented people, especially how children are impacted by their parents' situation. For what I learned I would highly recommend the book. On the negative side, I found the author's frequent use of Chinese words and conversations (often without direct translation)to be very annoying. I don’t think these random interjections added anything to the writing, and in fact often interrupted the flow of my reading. I was disappointed in the final chapters. Most of the book was written in incredibly detailed memories of her life thru middle school. The final chapters were lacking depth and details, almost as if they were hurriedly pasted on to satisfy readers' likely curiosity about what happened later. She was especially abrupt in summing up what happened to her parents. We experienced so many of their struggles, then suddenly their lives just moved on? Maybe that's a set-up for another book? I looked online for formal reviews of the book and found almost none. I think maybe that reflects the frustrations of others with the writing of the book suppressed by compassion for the family's very difficult struggles.

I bought this book to read and discuss for a book club. I usually don't read memoirs and was pleasantly surprised. The author relates the story of how she came to America with her mother to join her father in New York. Her parents were respected professors in China and were now reduced to menial jobs in order to survive. A new sensation for her was constant hunger. In spite of the hardships, she learns her new language and thrives.The author writes beautifully and with clarity of purpose. I was particularly struck by the contrast between their life in Maoist China, where her parents were successful, respected professionals who escaped to America to have a better life only to live in virtual squalor and constant struggle to survive. This is not the typical American view of life as it was under the oppressive Maoist regime.As an animal lover, I hated the way her father treated the poor cat and how the author also came to ultimately reject it, too.The ending seemed rushed, as if she were trying to finish to meet a deadline. Overall, I am happy she survived and became successful in spite or, or maybe because of, the difficulties.

This is a story for all immigrants. I identified with the author's feeling of not belonging, with one foot on each side of the fence. The process of becoming "American" is a life long journey. As a first generation Hungarian/American, I love America, but the transition from feeling like an alien lost in another world, takes a lifetime. However I am forever grateful to my family, the church who sponsored us, and this nation, where I had the opportunity to live and and fulfill my parents' dreams. God Bless America, it's beauty and it's faults.

If you can gloss over the few political stabs, this truly is a phenomenal read and window into the trauma surrounding undocumented life in America. The horrors of China escaped, only to be chased by the fear of deportation on every corner. The touching story leaves me with more questions than answers: why is our immigration process so costly? Why is it made so difficult for legal entry, thus encouraging people to continue entering in illegally? Where is the reform in this area so we can continue to be a beacon of hope while also ensuring we all become responsible citizens.