Kane, her fifth grade teacher, did not believe that Qian was capable of the exemplary work she produced. Even when Qian taught herself how to read and speak English and begged to be allowed back in the regular classroom, most of her teachers saw her only through stereotypes and misguided assumptions about her race. In school, Qian was placed in a class for students with special needs and was left to her own devices. In the United States, she lost her voice-others saw her differently because of her race. In China, she had been outgoing, attractive, and a leader.
She also learned that others did not perceive her the way that she had always perceived herself. Qian learned by observing people, reading books, and watching television. Qian’s parents labored in difficult conditions with little pay and no benefits. Meanwhile, her parents criticized her for being too fat, not realizing that she was bloated from malnutrition. Qian worked with her mother in a sweatshop, snipping threads off of clothes and waiting anxiously for a meager lunch of one scoop of rice. Qian and Ma Ma had a codependent relationship: Qian often felt the need to protect and care for her mother. When Qian was seven years old, she flew across the world with her Ma Ma to meet Ba Ba in the United States. The violence and ostracism that Ba Ba and his family witnessed and experienced traumatized him. Qian’s father grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution of 1966. This limited viewpoint allows the reader to make many inferences about the experiences that a child could only partially understand.
She persevered through hunger and poverty, and she emerged from her many challenges with her dreams intact.īeautiful Country uses the first person perspective of a small girl as a lens on the many challenges an immigrant family faces in the United States.
Qian also fought many battles of her own, navigating this new world, learning its ways, and facing its racism.
Qian watched as her parents labored at grueling menial jobs for minimal pay and witnessed the toll that their new life in Mei Guo, or “Beautiful Country,” took on her family. At the age of seven, Qian and her mother, a math and computer science professor, joined him in the United States. Wang’s father, an English professor, left China when Qian was only six.
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