Structure

This memoir is structured in a generally linear fashion, beginning with Qian’s early childhood in China, but primarily focusing in the roughly four or five years that Qian lived with her parents in the United States. The memoir first gives background on Qian’s family’s life in China. Qian describes some of the persecution that her grandparents experienced under the reign of Mao Zedong. She then alludes to some of her parents’ reasons for wishing to leave China and relocate to America. Most of the memoir consists of Qian’s observations and experiences from her childhood in America, as she recounts the many hardships that she and her parents faced there.

The narrative proceeds in roughly chronological order, although Qian also sometimes organizes the narrative around specific subjects rather than around a strictly linear timeline. For example, Qian sometimes rotates focus between her own experiences...