![]() ![]() And aptly so, because we spent those years shrouded in darkness while wrestling with hope and dignity.”Ĭhances are, you’ve read an immigration story or two. ![]() “The Chinese refer to being undocumented colloquially as ‘hei’: being in the dark, being blacked out. “My parents and I would spend the next five years in the furtive shadows of New York City,” she writes. This is one of many visceral memories Qian Julie Wang describes in her memoir, BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY (Doubleday, 320 pp., $28.95), which chronicles her family’s 1994 move from Zhong Gui, China, to Brooklyn. Years later, when you try sushi for the first time, you’ll recall the putrid smell of that warehouse and the exhaustion of the people toiling inside. Your toes will go numb from standing in icy sludge. There you will stand for eight hours, clad in ill-fitting rubber boots and a hooded plastic onesie, while she guts and beheads an endless stream of salmon floating by on a metal belt. Your mother, who was a math professor back in China, is now employed by a sushi processing plant near the Holland Tunnel. This is no corporate-sponsored occasion where you’ll raid the supply closet and nibble cookies frosted with the company logo it’s just a regular Saturday. ![]() Imagine you’re a kid, joining your mom for a day at work. ![]()
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