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American Dreams in Chinatown
by Lauren Hilgers
The deeply reported story of one indelible family transplanted from rural China to New York City, forging a life between two worlds.
In 2014, in a snow-covered house in Flushing, Queens, a village revolutionary from Southern China considered his options. Zhuang Liehong was the son of a fisherman, the former owner of a small teashop, and the spark that had sent his village into an uproar—pitting residents against a corrupt local government. Under the alias Patriot Number One, he had stoked a series of pro-democracy protests, hoping to change his home for the better. Instead, sensing an impending crackdown, Zhuang and his wife Little Yan left their infant son with relatives and traveled to America. With few contacts and only a shaky grasp of English, they had to start from scratch.
In Patriot Number One, Hilgers follows this dauntless family through a world hidden in plain sight: a byzantine network of employment agencies and language schools, of underground asylum brokers and illegal dormitories that Flushing's Chinese community relies on for survival. As the irrepressibly opinionated Zhuang and the more pragmatic Little Yan pursue legal status and struggle to reunite with their son, we also meet others piecing together a new life in Flushing. Tang, a democracy activist who was caught up in the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, is still dedicated to his cause after more than a decade in exile. Karen, a college graduate whose mother imagined a bold American life for her, works part time in a nail salon as she attends vocational school, and refuses to look backward.
With a novelist's eye for character and detail, Hilgers captures the joys and indignities of starting from scratch in a new country—and the stubborn allure of the American dream.
"Starred Review. Hilgers's narrative intercuts between the dramatic rebellion in Wukan and a vibrant portrait of Flushing's Chinese diaspora built around fine-grained character studies drawn with equal parts empathy and humor. The result is a quintessentially American story of exile and renewal." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. This book is hard to put down. It would be easy to say that it is recommended for readers interested in Chinese-American communities, but at its heart is a highly readable story about starting over in a new land; a must-read for all." - Library Journal
"This excellent book makes a powerful argument for why the U.S. should always remain a place of sanctuary, benefiting immensely from those who arrive from other shores." - Kirkus
"Patriot Number One is a wonderfully intimate portrait of Chinese immigrants. Lauren Hilgers followed her irrepressible protagonist (or rather he followed her) from a village in southern China to Queens, N.Y., and her book is chockablock with fresh observations and humor about both worlds." - Barbara Demick, author of Nothing to Envy
"A timely, informative book that offers a truthful account of the immigrant and exile experiences in the Chinese-American context. Hilgers captures the lives of her subjects with generosity, nuance, and psychological acuity." - Ha Jin, author of Waiting, winner of the National Book Award for Fiction
"With her fluent Chinese and meticulous reporting, Lauren Hilgers has crafted a deeply sympathetic portrait of some of the country's newest Chinese-Americans." - Peter Hessler, author of River Town and Oracle Bones
"Lauren Hilgers has found an unexpected hero in the southern Chinese teashop owner Zhuang Liehong, who launched perhaps the most important grassroots political movement in China since Tiananmen Square. In this fascinating book, Hilgers shows us how one person and one village can make a difference - and how precarious a life in exile can be." - Paul French, author of Midnight in Peking
"In Patriot Number One, Lauren Hilgers deftly weaves the personal with the political, the sweeping with the intimate, an immigration story that is genuinely timeless with a bracingly specific picture of Flushing, Queens, right now. She captures the ambitions and foibles of a trio of Chinese strivers, and demonstrates, in rousing detail, that whatever happens to America, it is still a country built on dreams." - Patrick Radden Keefe, author of The Snakehead
"Lauren Hilgers's Patriot Number One tells a great story spanning China and America, shedding light on the most complex and tangled relationship between any two nations in the world. It's a great yarn." - John Pomfret, author of Chinese Lessons and The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom
"Patriot Number One is an intricate and engaging dual portrait of the struggles of New York Chinese working class immigrants and the struggles of China's village democracy. Its carefully rendered scenes offer a rare depth to worlds we know mostly from headlines." - Jennifer B. Lee, author The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food
"The humanity, sly humor, and drama of Patriot Number One make it a delight to read. Its intertwined China-and-America narrative is revealing about both countries. This joins the list of books that easily convey larger messages through a vivid focus on the particular." - James Fallows, author of Postcards from Tomorrow Square: Reports from China and Our Towns
"Patriot Number One brilliantly captures the bittersweet combination of joy, sorrow, and transformation of Chinese immigrants in New York City. Lauren Hilgers' vibrant, compassionate writing transports readers to the gritty streets and vertiginou - Rob Schmitz, author of Street of Eternal Happiness; Shanghai correspondent, NPR
"Patriot Number One is a page-turning tale of the sub-world of exiled Chinese dissidents in American society. While Chinese immigration dates back generations, Lauren Hilgers has tapped into the more recent wave of Chinese political exiles and asylum seekers—and she astutely tracks their various struggles adjusting to life in America. A fascinating read." - David Shambaugh, author of China Goes Global; professor of political science, George Washington University
This information about Patriot Number One was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Lauren Hilgers lived in Shanghai, China for six years. Her articles have appeared in Harper's, Wired, Businessweek, The New Yorker, and The New York Times Magazine. She lives in New York with her husband and their daughter.
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