One of the reasons for book review on Pánsá Pánsá Forum is to explore diverse immigrant communities whose immigrant stories are similar to those of African immigrants, such as Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia. Qian Julie Wany’s book Beautiful Country tells the story of an immigrant family from China living in NYC in Chinatown as they struggle to survive as undocumented immigrants. The storyline is similar to stories told by many immigrants in America and many parts of the world. She began by recounting her family’s life before they migrated to America, the challenges they encountered after migration, and the resiliency that led to triumph.   

Reasons for migration

The stories of immigrants, no matter where they migrated from and what part of the world immigrants come from, reveal their humble beginnings, which usually described their lives before migration, how they risk everything they have from their home counties for better lives in another country, and hoping that with their unwavering resilience, their dream would come true. With a strong desire to succeed and re-establish their lives in their new countries, many immigrants possess the strength and endurance to overcome obstacles and focus on motivation to thrive. Such drive in determination, perseverance, and tenacity were also passed down to their children. According to a Time Magazine article on Why the Children of Immigrants Are the Ones Getting Ahead in America and it states, “no matter which country their parents came from, children of immigrants are more likely than the children of U.S.-born to surpass their parents’ incomes when they are adults.” Reading Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wany authenticates the beautiful story of an immigrant family from China and their resiliency as the family lives through poverty and experiences constant prejudice from others who see her and her family as unworthy or invisible. The story is a testimony of love, courage, and resiliency. Qian lived through challenging times. At a crucial time in her tender age, she taught herself how to read and write English. She experienced stereotypes and assumptions assigned to her race by her teachers, who were supposed to teach, guide, and protect her. 

Reality in living arrangement 

The projection of the American image to the world as a country of plenty with better opportunities for jobs, living conditions, education, freedom of speech, and protection from persecution and political violence attracts many people from all over the world to migrate to America. At seven years old, Qian Julie Wany traveled to NYC with her mother for a better life in “Mei Guo,” meaning a beautiful country. Wang’s mother was a math professor, and her father was an English professor in China before migrating to America as an undocumented immigrant living in the dark shadow of Chinatown in NYC. In China, Wang’s childhood seems like a joyous memory filled with love, extended family, and her room filled with toys to keep her company. Moving to America with her parents reveals the reality of the lives of undocumented immigrants. She shared a room with her parents divided by a curtain in a communal living space. There was limited or no privacy. The family shared a kitchen and a bathroom space with other residents in a private house along with the landlord, who would not provide adequate heat to keep the place warm. 

Barely surviving & living in poverty. 

Qian Julie Wany was a powerful storyteller. She depicted in her book the predicament and the challenges of undocumented immigrants and how her family was forced to live in abject poverty in the wealthiest country in the world. When the family was in Beijing, they spoke Mandarin, the language that is highly respected among those in academia. But in Brooklyn, NY, as her mother remarked, “All these Cantonese assume that if you speak Mandarin, you’re a farmer from Fuzhou.” Even people of the same heritage have biases against each other. Imagine being a highly educated and professional immigrant from China, but in America, her parents were reduced to menial jobs such as working in sweatshops and laundromats. Mother once took a notorious job working in a freezing sushi processing plant, standing for an eight-hour shift dressed in heavy rubber boots and a hooded plastic onesie while she filleted countless salmon daily. After coming home from such a tedious job daily with numbness in her hands and feet, the mother could barely be emotionally and physically available to her husband and her only child. With financial challenges, the family sometimes has to live off-trash picking, and Qian Julie Wany sometimes accompanies her mother to these menial jobs to earn a few cents. Talking about child labor in God’s own country, I guess that child labor law does not apply to undocumented immigrant children who are working under the radar. Undocumented immigrants are at the mercy of crude employers whose mission is to maximize profit at the expense of the most vulnerable members of society. 

When they are not picking up items from the trash on the street for household use, Wany sometimes goes shopping with her father. She said that her father was very realistic in selecting items. As her father advised, the chosen items had to be “portable, they had to be practical, and we had to be ready to leave them at a moment’s notice.” As the father continues to articulate his worries to his daughter about their unstable living condition, he states, “Never forget, Qian Qian, that we might have to leave at any second.” One of the parents could lose their job, or the landlord may raise the rent to the level the family could not afford to pay, and that could result in homelessness.

Poverty and Family Relationship

On the Pánsá Pánsá podcast and during many community conversations, I have spoken to countless children of African immigrants about generational conflict. How does living in poverty, living under the shadow of undocumented immigrants, lack of community support, and loneliness contribute to parent/child conflict within immigrant families? Wany’s story evidences this family dynamic where she often sees her parents constantly fighting and not talking to each other. Without recognizing the origin of their stress and with no resources to help ease the burden of poverty, parents may not picture how their new life negatively affects their only child. Both parents sometimes express their frustration to little Qian Qian in their emotional fog. Readers could feel her loneliness and her struggle to understand her parents’ emotional struggles, their love, and the sacrifices they made. Due to her loneliness and need for emotional challenges, Ma Ma often depends on her little daughter for emotional support. Qian Qian often feels guilty about leaving her mother alone, even spending a night at her friend’s house. Qian Qian always wants to be available to advise and protect her mother.  

Undocumented & Worries about deportation

It is not uncommon for undocumented immigrant parents to caution their children about citizens of their host countries for fear of unthinkable things that may happen. In most cases, the warnings were not due to hatred or dislike towards the citizens of their host country but out of apprehension of not engaging in activities that may get the family into trouble with the law, which could lead to deportation. Undocumented immigrant families are in constant fear of being discovered and deported if someone finds out their status. In the case of Qian Qian, the father drilled a cover story into his daughter about her country of birth. As he instructed Qian Qian, if anyone asked her where she came from, she should say that she was born in America and always lived here. One could feel the heaviness of worries from the parents about their deportation as they regularly have to be on guard, and the father cautioned his daughter about navigating through diverse races. The father stated as he cautioned his daughter about the citizens of their host country, “None of the other races were our friends. The white people had the most money, but others were dangerous, too. To all of them, we were weak, easy targets who wouldn’t fight back”. He advised his daughter, “Just remember this, Qian Qian: we are safe only with our own kind.” 

Undocumented & Barrier to Health Care

Undocumented immigrants most likely do not have medical coverage because they often work off the books and in jobs that do not have medical coverage. The barriers to seeking medical care, if needed, also include language barriers, lack of information about patient rights, and the general belief that fighting for their rights could lead to deportation. Many undocumented immigrants would seek health advice from traditional healers in the locality or continue suffering in silence until the situation becomes unbearable or close to death. When Qian’s mother fell sick, the family initially declined to seek medical treatment because of lack of coverage and for fear of deportation. They relegated the primary health care need to Chinatown by seeking medical care from traditional practitioners and using traditional remedies. When the mother’s health worsened, and the conventional remedies failed, there was no choice but to seek modern medicine. Qian, alone at home with her mother, saw that her health continued to deteriorate. Qian had no choice but to call 911, and when the ambulance came, she described how she looked around to see if there was any sign of a police car. When she saw the two uniformed paramedics, she assumed that they were police and they were going to ask her about her immigration status.   

Overcoming and paying it forward

With all these encounters, Wany was able to navigate her way through poverty and the cruelty of being an undocumented child to graduating from Yale Law School and now a managing partner of a law firm that works on assisting marginalized communities. Her online bio states, “Qian Julie has a particular expertise in appeals, having led nearly 50 such civil rights, constitutional, education, employment, and contract disputes before the state and federal courts, including on fillings of amici curiae before the U.S. Supreme Court”. Some children of immigrants prioritize giving back to their communities, and they do so due to their family experience, which cultivates such commitment. 

Conclusion    

Reading Beautiful Country has been genuinely impactful, relatable, and emotional for me as an immigrant from Nigeria. The book not only brings back the memories of my struggles, unpleasant memories of biases, and discriminations I experienced in the past and continues to experience after living in America for over 40 years. Rather than holding on to anger and bitterness towards her parents on their choices and the trauma she experienced as a child of immigrants, she upheld love with understanding and forgiveness. A reader could appreciate that Qian understood the challenges and the hurdles of her parents’ daily struggles and sacrifices. Her book provides readers with a front role to observe the realities of the lives of undocumented immigrants in America in a way American citizens would never understand. Hopefully, this book will bring awareness to the dilemmas faced by many immigrants in America. I highly recommend this book, and most immigrants would relate to this story regardless of one’s experiences.