Patriot Number One
American Dreams in Chinatown
Failed to add items
Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping basket is already at capacity.
Add to cart failed.
Please try again later
Add to wishlist failed.
Please try again later
Remove from wishlist failed.
Please try again later
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Listen with Audible free trial
New to Audible Prime Member exclusive: 2 credits with free trial
1 credit a month to use on any title to download and keep
Listen to anything from the Plus Catalogue—thousands of Audible Originals, podcasts and audiobooks
Download titles to your library and listen offline
₹199.00 per month after 30-day trial. Cancel anytime.
Patriot Number One
Narrated by:
Angela Lin
Buy Now for ₹650.61
-
Narrated by:
-
Angela Lin
-
Written by:
-
Lauren Hilgers
New York Times Critics • Wall Street Journal • Kirkus Reviews
Christian Science Monitor • San Francisco Chronicle
Finalist for the PEN Jacqueline Bograd Weld Biography Award
Shortlisted for the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize
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 tea shop, 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 building a life in a new country—and the stubborn allure of the American dream.
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
No reviews yet