My Rating: 5 stars
With the ongoing immigration debate in the U.S. as of
late, this book that takes a deep dive into the Chinese immigrant community through
the stories of several immigrants pursuing their version of the American dream
is a timely one that I feel everyone should read. Written by American journalist Lauren Hilgers,
this a real-life, first-hand account of the Chinese immigrant experience
through the story of Zhuang Liehong, a young man from the village of Wukan in
China who finds himself seeking asylum in the United States in order to escape
political persecution back home. Using
the pseudonym “patriot number one,” Zhuang had organized protests and wrote
letters exposing the corruption of local government officials who had
requisitioned land belonging to the village and sold it to developers for
profit, all without approval or consent of those who owned and/or lived on the
land (a “practice” that still goes on quite frequently in China and Hong Kong
currently). Despite his boundless
enthusiasm and love for his village, the place where he grew up and where he
hoped to raise his son, Zhuang came to understand that he was fighting an
uphill battle and in 2014, he and his wife Little Yan decided to leave China for
New York, eventually settling in Flushing, amongst a larger community of
Chinese immigrants. From there, we
follow Zhuang and Little Yan on their journey as they attempt to carve out a
new life for themselves in a country where they not only didn’t know the
language, they also had little in the way of friends and/or acquaintances to
guide them (the author Hilgers was the only “friend” they knew in the
U.S.). The challenge to survive was an
everyday reality for this couple, as they fought to get their asylum case
approved so that they could reunite with their infant son, whom they were
forced to leave behind in China. In
addition to Zhuang and Little Yan’s story, Hilgers also paralleled the stories
of a few other Chinese immigrants – Karen, a young woman Little Yan meets at
night school who is trying to build a new life for herself after being sent to
study in the U.S., and Tang Yuanjun, a former leader of the Tiananmen Square
protests who survived his fair share of imprisonment and abuse in China and upon
settling in the U.S., decides to devote his life to helping fellow immigrants
who, like Zhuang, continue to fight for justice and change in their home towns.
I first read about this book in Book Page and was
immediately drawn to it because of my own background as a Chinese
immigrant. Of course, having immigrated
to the U.S. as a small child, my experiences were very different from Zhuang
and Little Yan’s, but being so connected to the Chinese community (both locally
as well as back in the place of my birth – Hong Kong) most of my life, there
were many elements of their story (as well as the stories of Karen, Tang
Yuanjun, and others described in the book) that I knew I would be familiar with
and be able to relate to. The other
reason I was drawn to this book was because of my own family dynamics – my
brother’s wife is from China, also from a village in the more rural areas, and
even though it has been 10 years since she immigrated here and since then, she
has overcome many of the struggles she herself had faced, balancing life as an
immigrant continues to be a challenge due to the extended family she has both
here as well as back in China. Though
the circumstances of my family members’ stories were vastly different than those
described in the book (for example – my family immigrated here the traditional way
due to wanting a better life for themselves and future generations rather than needing
to escape political persecution), many of the experiences once here were
similar.
The struggles of working class immigrants are very real
and while I don’t fault those who paint all immigrants with a broad brush or who
dismiss immigrants’ struggles as less important and somehow “legitimate”
because they are viewed as “imposing” themselves on another country, it is hard
for me to share these same sentiments knowing as deeply as I do the “price”
behind those struggles. I understand
what it means to leave behind family – parents, siblings, in the case of Zhuang
and Little Yan, their infant son – and travel to a place that is completely
foreign to you, a place that you’ve only read or heard grand stories about, a
place where you don’t know the language and barely know anyone and where the
question of survival is constantly on your mind. Having to work through bureaucratic red tape in
efforts to do things “the right way” while figuring out a means to survive
financially without becoming a burden to others, not knowing how long the “wait”
will be yet wanting to be useful and contributing to society, learning English
and going beyond that to gain new skills and knowledge in the hopes of
bettering one’s position in the future, the constant worrying that perhaps all
this hard work is in vain and the toll it takes physically / mentally /
emotionally, having to deal with racism and discrimination in all its different
forms while trying to understand why one’s facial features or the color of one’s
skin should matter so much – these are but just a few of the struggles, all
experienced at one point or another by the real people described in this book,
struggles that many of my family members are also all too familiar with. The struggles, the hardships, the stress of trying
to survive, sometimes it is hard not to become disillusioned and disheartened, yet
many are willing to endure because compared to what they face in their home countries,
this is but a small price to pay in exchange for the freedom that so many of us
take for granted. Some of the situations
described in the book may seem unfathomable to some people, maybe even “far-fetched”
and “unbelievable” that things like that could happen, especially in this day
and age, but yet so much of what occurred was indeed authentically recounted --
this I’m sure because I also follow what goes on in those parts of Asia (China
and Hong Kong especially) and so I was already familiar with much of the narrative’s
backstory. In fact, I was actually
surprised (in a good way) to see some of the real-life news stories from that
part of the world (such as the 2015 Hong Kong bookseller disappearances for
example) mentioned in this book -- this was something I wasn’t expecting but am
very appreciative of because of the awareness that it brings, which hopefully
leads to much needed understanding on a deeper level…a necessity given the
current world we live in.
I have so many thoughts about this book and to be honest,
for this review, I didn’t even include half of the notes I had written down. To me, this is a book that is hard to do
justice with a review because there is just too much worthy of discussion in
here. The author Lauren Hilgers is obviously
a talented writer and also a compelling storyteller -- there were a few times throughout
the book where I actually had to remind myself that I was reading a work of
nonfiction rather than a fiction novel and that everyone mentioned in the book –
Zhuang, Little Yan, Karen, Tang Yuanjun, etc. – are all real people. As mentioned earlier, this is a story that I absolutely
felt a personal connection to and in fact would have liked to see an update of
sorts in the author’s note on how each person is doing currently, since a year
has passed since the last occurrences described in the book. Also, since Zhuang’s story was about his
escape from political persecution in his home country and his efforts to
rebuild his life as an asylee in the U.S., it was inevitable that there would
be some parts of the narrative related to politics in the book, which is
something I tend to stay away from if I can help it. Luckily, Hilgers dealt with the politics
piece in a way that wasn’t heavy-handed – in fact, it was more a “side story”
in the book, incorporated primarily as background to understanding Zhuang’s
story, which I definitely appreciated.
With all this said, I feel that this review merely skims
the surface and really doesn’t justify how important and necessary a book like
this is, especially right now, in our current situation. This is a timely read and one that I
absolutely recommend for its honest, authentic portrayal of the Chinese immigrant
experience.
Received ARC from
Crown Publishing via Penguin First-to-Read program.
