Instead of laughing at her jokes, they fight constantly. Her professor parents now work in Chinatown sweatshops and sushi factories. What it felt like to risk everything and write openly about their move away from China Experiences growing up living in fear and poverty in New York, and how that’s shaped her current career as a lawyer Her thoughts on Afghani refugees, anti-Asian hate, and what we can all do to better understand the people in our communities About the book: In Chinese, the word for America, “Mei Guo,” translates directly to “Beautiful Country.” Yet when 7-year-old Qian is plucked from her comfortable life in China where she’s surrounded by friends and family and arrives in New York City in 1994, she finds the roads paved not with gold, but instead crushing fear and scarcity. Have questions, comments, or concerns? Email us at to listen for: In her debut memoir, which she started writing in 2016 while on the subway on her iPhone, Qian Julie Wang tells her story of being an undocumented seven-year-old who arrives in New York City in 1994 with her parents from northern China - and all of the wonders and heartbreak and LIFE that happens as you come of age in a country that has expressly shown you that you don’t belong, in so many ways. Talking to her was like seeing this book come to life - but we didn’t just stop with the book. Listen in to hear about Beautiful Country, but also so much more, in this conversation that we didn’t want to end. Sometimes there are those books that are so hauntingly beautiful, disturbing, or touching (or all three) that you can’t stop thinking about them for days after you finally put them down after binge reading them. Some of those for us are The Handmaid’s Tale, or Americanah, or Song of Solomon. But recently, we found another book that we’ve been thinking about ever since putting it down - Beautiful Country.

Wang beautiful country