A young Chinese girl forced to work in a New York sweatshop calls child services on her mother in this powerful memoir about labour and self-worth, economic revolution and cultural dislocation.
As a teen, Anna Qu is sent by her mother to work in her family's garment factory in Queens. At home, she is treated as a maid and suffers punishment for doing her homework at night. Her mother wants to teach her a lesson: she is Chinese, not American, and such is their tough path in their new country. But instead of acquiescing, Qu alerts the Office of Children and Family Services, an act with consequences that impact the rest of her life.
Nearly twenty years later, estranged from her mother and working at a Manhattan start-up, Qu requests her social services report. When it arrives, key details are wrong. Faced with this false narrative, and on the brink of losing her job as the once-shiny start-up collapses, Qu looks once more at her life's truths, from abandonment to an abusive family to seeking meaning in work.
Travelling from Wenzhou to Xi'an to New York, Made in China is a fierce memoir unafraid to ask thorny questions about trauma and survival, capitalism, and the struggle for individual dignity.
Rezensionen / Stimmen
'Made in China capture[s] the confusion and wonder of lives spent looking ... Qu's narrative is laced with bitterness and aching ... The struggle ... seems to be holding all of these conflicting emotions at once ... Qu honour[s] these complexities, tell us we were not meant to swallow our pain and survive in this world without support systems.' -- Chanel Miller * New York Times Book Review * 'Qu's debut memoir untangles the knots of her complicated, traumatic past as she learns the truth about her own history and reckons with the hopes and constraints of the immigrant experience.' * Time * 'With quick, vibrant prose, Qu's memoir is absorbing and disturbing in equal measure.' -- Christiana Bishop * New Statesman * 'Qu writes with clarity and restraint about her Cinderella-terrible childhood ... Qu's indelible account of her lonesome childhood should gain her everything she lacked then - confidants, witnesses, and fans - who will cheer when she finally reconnects with a long-lost beloved.' -- Jenny Shank * Star Tribune * 'Anna Qu has written a thoroughly engrossing and nuanced memoir about triumph over trauma and the meaning of home. Made in China brings the immigrant experience to life and makes you root for Anna. A must read.' -- Sopan Deb, author of <i>Missed Translations</i> 'Made in China is an important story told with intelligence and heart, and a study of discipline as a form of devotion - devotion to a mother, to a legacy, to our own dreams and to those of others, to being good. So much of American rhetoric is about what we are owed. This graceful memoir is about the much trickier problem of what we deserve. Which is, in the end, brightest love.' -- Lacy Crawford, author of <i>Notes on a Silencing</i> 'Anna masterfully evokes her childhood with a power and grace that speak of an experience that no one should ever have to endure. This moving and unforgettable memoir needs to be read by everyone.' -- Nicole Dennis-Benn, author of <i>Patsy</i> 'Made in China is a sympathetic, brave portrayal of the confusions, difficulties, and hurts that come with growing up between worlds. Anna Qu's writing about her journey as an immigrant deftly shows how our origins - of economic status, of country - have lasting effects on the ways we approach family, work, and self. I was captivated and moved by her story.' -- Alexandra Chang, author of <i>Days of Distraction</i> 'Qu rewrites the bootstrap narrative of immigrants building a better life for their children in her grim and entrancing debut. Her "path to the American dream" amounts to a devastating story of abuse and abandonment ... Even in revisiting her harrowing memories, Qu writes from a place of empathy, transcending pain to embrace hope ... This marks the arrival of a promising new voice.' * <i>Publishers Weekly</i>, starred review * 'A nuanced examination of complicated ripple effects of intergenerational emigration. A powerful memoir of finding self-worth.' * Library Journal * 'A grim yet gripping memoir of an unhappy, nearly loveless childhood and the author's determined escape to a better adulthood ... Well written ... Brilliantly insightful ... A simultaneously powerful and depressing latter-day Dickensian story sure to elicit sympathy from readers.' * Kirkus Reviews * 'Poignant ... Vividly narrated and psychologically perceptive, Qu's story uses family trauma to find perspective on immigration and perhaps even America itself.' * Booklist * 'What will haunt readers are the indelible feelings - of loss, fear, anger, and devastation, but, by book's end, somehow, she has love ... Anna Qu's unflinching memoir recalls the love of her earliest years and the labour she endured to survive into adulthood.' * Shelf Awareness * 'Lively ... Qu presents her recollections in a precise, distressing chronology that sheds light on both the strictures of her Chinese cultural heritage and the sometimes arbitrary carelessness of the American social system meant to protect youngsters from neglect and mistreatment ... Qu writes with great fluidity, giving her memoir a novelistic reach that speaks of a new career path in the realm of words and their truest meanings. Her mastery of English and her memory of several Chinese dialects will give her gritty memories a special punch for those trapped in similar circumstances, whether as immigrants, sweatshop workers, survivors of childhood abuse, or simply strong young women overcoming the odds to gain the best that life has to offer.' -- Barbara Bamberger Scott * bookreporter * 'Made in China is a fierce, provocative look at the sacrifices made by immigrants in a new country, and the sacrifices they pass down to the next generation. It's a story of family and trauma, resilience and collapse, and Qu is dazzling as she dismantles the mythologies surrounding the immigrant work ethic, making clear that a person's humanity should never be connected with how "productive" they are.' -- Kristin Iversen * Refinery29 * 'A heartbreaking reflection of the ripple effects of immigration.' -- Katherine Ouellette * WBUR * 'A harrowing memoir about the indifference we show toward children, especially those who emigrate to the United States.' -- Evette Dionne * Bitch * 'A deeply honest rendering of domestic conflict ... Made in China is dynamic, a subversive and yet inherently personal piece of work ... In this memoir, Qu doesn't conform to labels. She rips off the tags others have created for her and creates her own.' -- Valerie Wu * Asia Pacific Arts * 'Anna's story shares a similar arc to the likes of Educated and The Glass Castle - memoirs with heroines who overcome seemingly insurmountable disadvantages through education and sheer will.' -- Yoojin Na * BOMB * 'Unravels larger assumptions about immigration, labour, and trauma at both the personal and collective level, demonstrating how many seemingly disparate elements of our lives are deeply connected ... It is a clear-eyed look at a reality that many in the United States would otherwise look away from ... Remarkable.' -- Julia Shiota * Ploughshares * 'Anna Qu has a tough story to tell, and she tells it with graceful candour ... Made in China isn't always an easy read, but it will make you examine the intricacies of mother-daughter love and the indelible influence of intergenerational trauma.' -- Megan Vered * The Rumpus * 'A skillful and emotive excavation of a traumatic childhood split between China and the United States.' -- Jonathan Chatwin * South China Morning Post * 'There are no easy answers here, and that's what makes this memoir so absorbing.' -- Elayna Trucker * Napa Valley Register * 'This candid, heartbreaking story centres on an uncommon immigrant narrative featuring a complicated mother-daughter relationship intermingled with the dark side of the pursuit of opportunity in America.' * Oprah Daily * 'An emotionally-charged memoir about migration, belonging, and family-based abuse, Made In China is a confronting read. Ultimately, though, readers are left with a profoundly enlightening experience, owing to the skill that Qu applies when unpacking the various details of her experience. A profound story whose impact can be felt on a personal and societal level.' * Happy Mag * '[Made in China] vividly and poignantly documents [Anna Qu's] childhood, the darkness, occasional glimmers of light and, eventually, coming through.' * The Sydney Morning Herald *
Anna Qu is a Chinese American writer. She writes personal essays on identity and growing up in New York as an immigrant. Her work has appeared in Threepenny Review, Lumina, Kartika, Kweli, Vol.1 Brooklyn, and Jezebel, among others. She holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Sarah Lawrence College. She serves as the Nonfiction Editor at Kweli Journal, and teaches at New England College, Sackett Street Writers' Workshop, and Catapult. She lives in Brooklyn with her partner and their cat, Momo.
