Qian Julie Wangs debut memoir Beautiful Country is a compelling and intimate portrait of an undocumented childhood. WANG: It really happened during my second clerkship, when I was clerking on the 9th Circuit. What do you hope readers take away from Beautiful Country? I realized that I had been Jewish all along; I simply hadn't known it. I could hardly believe the range of options, and made my way from the salad bar to the pasta assortment, the entre section and the ice cream spread. I'd always dreamed about writing this book. I went on to graduate still pretending that food did not matter as much as it did to me as my childhood prescribed it always would. WebBeautiful Country: A Memoir (2021) by civil rights litigator Qian Julie Wang tells the story of Wangs experiences immigrating from China to the United States. Qian Julie Wang, who is a Yale Law graduate, now an attorney, has written a memoir, "Beautiful Country." Both of these names are integral parts of me, and I can no more choose between them than I can between my left and right legs. But there are so many other titles that brought vibrancy to my childhood years: every single installment of "The Baby-Sitter's Club," the "Sweet Valley Twins" series, "The Diary of Anne Frank," "Where the Red Fern Grows," "Number the Stars," "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH," "The Giver.". We had to forgo one last year, so I know we will be more than making up for it this year around. In China, Qians parents were professors; in America, her family is illegal and it will require all the determination and small joys they can muster to survive. It was then that I realized that what I had long thought of as singularly mine was no longer my secret to keep. That changed when I started gathering with my fellow Jews of Color. And during every Sharples outing that first year, I always returned for seconds. Coming to America at age 7, she was thrown into the brand new world of New York City. There have been more than one report of, for instance, Black Jews being followed by synagogue security guards and Asian Jews being subjected to fetishized comments during services (if I had a nickel every time a man came up to me during prayer and told me about an Asian woman he once dated). My children have also experienced negative comments and have been discriminated against at Ben Gurion Airport. Soon, she was spending I think it is easy to forget as adults how very difficult and terrifying it is to be a child navigating the world. Now, shes telling her story for the first time buoyed by the hope of reaching those in libraries who were just like her. I decided to embark on writing this when I became a citizen in May 2016, six months before the election. WebWang converted to Judaism, founding and leading a Jews of Color group at Manhattan Central Synagogue; on the day her debut memoir was released, Wang delivered a lay Qian Julie Wang grew up in libraries. It was not until after years of therapy of struggling to make peace with my past while etching a balanced, ethical relationship with food that I realized my response to Sharples had been far from abnormal. What do you hope your story will leave with readers, either with or without similar experiences to your own? Whats your favorite part about being Jewish? He sees on the dirt ground a single character written in blood: . Wrongly accused. Balance is a concept that I think few litigators know (I certainly don't!). I bit the insides of my cheeks, my appetite gone, while the friend closest to me explained that they had all just been complaining about how horrible the food was. as a gift from my beloved third grade teacher. He had even started teaching me the importance of keeping my head down, of not asking any questions or drawing any attention, seemingly forgetting that he had taught me the exact opposite in China. Emily Burack(she/her) is Alma's deputy managing editor. Qian Julie Wang was born the daughter of two professors in China and when she was seven, they moved to Mei Guo (the Beautiful Country) America and became undocumented immigrants. The fear of keeping that secret (of being undocumented) seems to be central to your life as a child. Qian Julie Wang is a graduate of Yale Law School and Swarthmore College and is managing partner of a law firm dedicated to advocating for education, disability, and civil rights. You also didn't speak Chinese, as some kid taunted you about - at least his Chinese. When did you feel you could begin to talk more openly about all of this? WANG: It was, but I think I was protected by the fact that I was a child and just kind of took things as they came, as children do, and had that sort of natural resilience. So, now my mom is in her 50s, and shes playing with the carrot peel to just create something out of it. Most of all, though, I am really looking forward to getting together with family at the seder. We are in overdrive pretty much all the time. Photo credit: What memoirs, or other books, inspired you in your writing process? QJW: Im just so grateful for that, to have had that as a child and to still have that. QIAN JULIE WANG is a graduate of Yale Law School and Swarthmore College. How did they react? Her family escaped to the United States, New York, in 1994 but were undocumented, and they had to live, in the Chinese phrase, as people in hei (ph) - the dark, the shadows, the underground world of undocumented immigrants who work menial jobs off the books in fear that their underground existence might be exposed. Reading Qian Julie Wangs debut memoir, Beautiful Country, you wouldnt know its her first book. How did you balance working as a litigator and writing your memoir?. Thank you so much During my undocumented childhood I arrived at elementary school every day starving.. Qian Julie Wang, who is a Yale Law graduate, now an attorney, has written a memoir, "Beautiful Country." Qian and her husband Marc exchanged vows in a lovely book-themed wedding in September 2019. It was, indeed, the atmosphere at the Sharples dining room that had been abnormal, problematic. I pulled my phone out and started typing on that flight, and gave myself until December 31, 2019 to finish the first draft or forget about it for good. Yet when seven-year-old Qian arrives in New York City in 1994 full of curiosity, she is overwhelmed by crushing fear and scarcity. Has your family read "Beautiful Country"? Wang and her parents were undocumented, and the 2016 election - which occurred just after she became a naturalized American citizen - spurred her to begin writing her memoir on her phone on the subway. And over the years, she made her way through some worse and some slightly better jobs, including processing salmon at a sushi plant, where she stood in ice water for 12 hours at a time. So help us understand how you navigated through that world. We hope so! My first year at Swarthmore in 2005, I gained 20 pounds. My parents remain deeply ashamed and regretful of the past, and I don't think they've ever forgiven themselves for my childhood years. That changed when I started gathering with my fellow Jews of Color. I gave myself permission then to stop working on the book, not knowing if I would ever find my way back. I cant imagine going from being a lawyer to someone who has to work in a sweatshop and a sushi factory and just has to endure. You do fart jokes. Everything thats super-immature, we do. When I first read Minor Feelings, I was shocked to find another Asian American woman, living across the country and many years older than me, who had precise insight into all of the things that I thought I had been oversensitive about. QJW: There are people in my life who know me only as Qian, and others who know me only as Julie. But two months later, on December 30, I was done with the entire draft. I had become a citizen six months before and felt I had a responsibility to tell my story. It wasstill difficult as I hadnt thought about the events for decades so I went into therapy to talk about what had happened. I hadto start with the happy memories to crack that door open and then start working on the harder memories. What helped me a lot, was that I didnt have lots of time. Working on 80 hour a week as a lawyer, I wrote on the subway commute and it felt like I was texting somebody my story rather than writing a book. What were some influential books for you growing up?, In my book, I share my story about receiving my copy of "Charlotte's Web" (which I still have!) Qian Julie Wang's new book is a modern day Jewish American immigrant tale Qian Julie Wang grew up in libraries. Coming to America at age 7, she was thrown into the brand new world of New York City. Soon, she was spending all her free time in her local Chinatown library, soaking up as much English as possible. There was probably no better way to discover kindred spirits with whom I share my passion for activism, racial justice, immigrants rights and spirituality. After we finished most of the substantive edits, I made partner, and then it was a fork in the road. Start typing to see what you are looking for. If you have any questions, you can email OnLine@Ingrams.com, or call 816.268.6402. When she's not writing incredible memoirs, Wang is a litigator working as the managing partner of Gottlieb & Wang LLP - a firm dedicated to advocating for education and disability rights. The stench of decomposing flesh floods his nose. At the age of seven, Qian traveled to the United States with her mother. We all, I suspect, have had a teacher who was not altogether nice to us; we all have at some point felt like we did not fit in, and we all recall fondly the first time we discovered our favorite food and our favorite book. That myopic focus in the U.S. tends to result in Jewish spaces that feel deeply unwelcoming, and often even overtly hostile, to Jews of Color. For many years of my life, I operated by a set of clear and abiding principles, and asked inconvenient, challenging questions, but I had no formal spiritual framework. We loved this extraordinary debut about life as an undocumented immigrant told through the eyes of a seven year old girl. Was it hard writing such a memoir? WANG: Immediately upon arriving here, I noticed that my parents were incredibly nervous. Big events in your childhood tend to be crystallised in lightbulb moments. I also took copious notes in my dairy from an early age, especially after I had read Harriet the Spy. Those notes helped to jog my memory me being jealous of my classmates eating an ice cream every day. Even so, I figured I would never make it happen, because I lived under messaging from all directions, my parents included, that my past was shameful and had to be kept hidden. Sign up for news about books, authors, and more from Penguin Random House, Visit other sites in the Penguin Random House Network. We are experiencing technical difficulties. You were only 7 when you arrived in the US and you recall the events with amazing clarity. Start earning points for buying books! Which books inspired you to write your memoir and which have inspired you most recently? It was always drilled into me that literacy was my way out, and that was because I had a dad who was a literature professor, who had read Mark Twain and Dickens, and it was part of why he came here. SIGN UP TO OUR NEWSLETTER TO STAY IN-THE-NOW. This year's Rosh Hashanah is major for me for many reasons. All of us have secrets but once youre told to keep something a secret, there is an inherent shame to them. Whether they are or not. It took me decades to unroll the physiological effects it had on me.. Did you speak to your parents about them how did you remember so much? QJW: I think it was very difficult for my parents to shift their relationship to work. Published by Alma, a 70 Faces Media brand, PO Box 300742Fern Park, FL 32730Ph: (407) 834-8787info@heritagefl.com, Powered by ROAR Online Publication Software from Lions Light Corporation Balance is a concept that I think few litigators know (I certainly dont!). Secrets: they have so much power dont they. While I grew up learning English on library books, I never found a book that depicted characters who looked like me and lived in the way my parents and I did. Lauded by clients as "exceptionally talented" and "exemplary," Qian Julie has represented Fortune 500 corporations, governmental entities, and individuals in Follow. How one special Pink Day helps save and support cancer patients, A Jewish producer of 'All Quiet On The Western Front' sees his family history in the Oscar-nominated Netflix film, Jewish Chamber goes to a Solar Bears' game. A New York Times bestselling author and advocate for marginalized communities, Wang writes about the hardships she and her parents faced moving to and living in the United States. My parents have read parts of it, and I have fact-checked certain memories with them, but they have not read the whole thing! 04 Mar 2023 20:24:54 And it was in that room that I first felt this sense of agency. In many ways, "Beautiful Country" issuch an American story. We had to forgo one last year, so I know we will be more than making up for it this year around. When I quit, I was terrified, but every day that has passed since, I dont know how I ever questioned that choice. Its why I wanted to open the book with my first lie on the plane which I told to protect my mother. Then, going into the election and hearing all the discourse, I felt something fundamentally change within me, where I recognized for the first time that I had a profound privilege to be on the other side of the experience and that I was choosing not to think about it and not to speak about it. When I discovered Judaism, I finally felt complete. It took me 6 months from when I got the book deal to tell my parents because they are still very much afraid that we could all be deported. It was verystressful and I didnt know how they would take it. They didnt take it very well. Now they have resigned themselves to it. The Chinese we do not like airingour dirty laundry it was how I was raised and it feels very exposing. I have shown them chapters and fact checked parts (particularly the opening chapters about my father) but I havent shown them the whole book cover to cover. It was clear early that my appreciation of Sharples was not widely shared, but I would not realize just how rare it was until one specific incident. It was where I learned English, discovered my favorite books and learned what it meant to feel comfortable in my new land. For five years thereafter, the three lived in the shadows of And my parents have held on to their childhood selves, for better or for worse, more than any adult or older person that I have met. I even found a poem about my cat. The diary really transported me back. There were alsosome conversations with my parents but they not very comfortable talking about it all. There were also a very few photos which helped me remember things like my favourite clothes. QIAN JULIE WANG: Thank you so much for having me, Scott. This is the very reason I wrote the book: this dream that another Chinese, Asian American, immigrant, poor or hungry kid might come upon it at their public library and might find in it something that gives them hope or solace to keep going. Your parents are such a central part to the book as you are an only child. It is Overdue. It was there that I never had to question whether or not I belonged. It was my biggest and wildest ambition to write a book that might allow others out there to see themselves reflected in literature, and have them know that it is possible to survive similar circumstances. Yet, border control detained me whenever I reentered. The only way to balance it with working 60-80 hours a week was a concrete rule: As long as I was on the subway platform or on the subway on my way to or from work, I was writing on my phone. Do I want to go down this path, which is just following the momentum of what Id done with my adult life, or do I want to listen to little Qian and do what she would want me to do?