![]() ![]() ![]() Wang’s is not only a story of what it means to be an “American” but what it means to be a human navigating a world that reveals itself increasingly indifferent to the humanity it aspires to. Her nuanced expressions of loss oscillate between lighthearted acceptance and heartbreaking desperation as the new world expands and contracts around the things she clings to most-her family. We follow Wang through her childhood as she tries to reconcile the life she cherished in China with the duty to assimilate into her new life in Mei Guo, America, the “Beautiful Country.” She observes with precocious astuteness as her once well-respected parents’ identities and marriage begin to unravel under the heaviness of the American dream, from the arduous jobs they take on to the lies they are forced to maintain in order to secure their safety. Wang, with her honest and compelling prose, not only shares the story of her family’s immigration, she invites you into the vulnerable intimacies of her upbringing with an openness that will quickly endear her to you. That is why stories like Qian Julie Wang’s Beautiful Country are the kind that knock me off my feet. Growing up as an American, it can be easy take all the privileges and opportunities for granted, to inflate the challenges in your own life and move through the world with the individualistic mentality this country incentivizes. ![]()
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