Summary

In Chapter 1, Qian Wang recalls leaving China at age 7, in the 1990s. She and her mother left northern China via airplane. Qian’s father had relocated to New York City years prior, in order to find work and make enough money for Qian and her mother to join him. Qian’s grandparents had been harshly persecuted decades prior, under the reign of Mao Zedong. Qian’s parents hoped to find more freedom and economic opportunity in the United States. Qian’s mother had had difficulty receiving permission from the Chinese government to emigrate, until she took Qian to the bureaucracy office one day, and Qian cried loudly in front of a bureaucrat.

In Chapter 2, Qian recalls memories from her childhood in China. Qian’s father worked as an English professor, and her mother was a published academic. They were comfortably middle-class. However, Qian’s...