Anthologies and I don’t normally get along very well. I’ve only read 4 in recent memory, and only 2 of them were still pleasurable by the end. But this one really surprised me. It had all the charm of a variety of stories, but they were all bound together by a common theme and geographic location. The result was a brilliantly detailed, kaledeiscopic view of the struggles of the Chinese-American immigrant.


What does it mean to be a Chinese immigrant to America? Much more than you think.

 Genre: fiction, anthology

Plot: Throughout each of these related-but-distinct stories, immigrants to Flushing, NY must struggle with various aspects of Chinese-American immigrant life, from balancing American marriages with Chinese cultural ideas about men and women to names and their significance.

Execution: Without a doubt, this was one of the most delightful and insightful volumes I’ve read this year. Wonderfully written, each piece feels profoundly thought-through; unlike some authors, I get the impression that Mr. Jin cared deeply for each and every entry he included. It was by turns amusing, poignant, and even at times tragic.

What I loved most was how the stories were connected thematically (what does it mean to be a Chinese-American immigrant?) but also geographically. Everyone was somehow connected to Flushing, NY. The resulting effect was like reading one of those scale models you can approach from a variety of angles: refreshing yet with that connectivity that gives a depth of reading experience so hard to find in short stories.

I also liked how Jin refused to succumb to stereotypical images or stories. He sought to create true, vibrant characters that reflected the conflicts and tensions in immigrant life in a variety of aspects. As a result I–a typical WASPy white woman–truly felt like I had stepped into someone else’s shoes and experienced aspects of life I would never encounter on my own, which if you think about it is perhaps the second highest pleasure reading can give (the first being a paradigm-level shift in thinking provoked by a book).

Theme: say it with me: Chinese culture, American culture, modern immigrant life

Read this if you really get excited by those Ellis Island documentaries

4 out of 5 stars

Other works:
Waiting
In the Pond
The Crazed
War Trash
A Free Life

If you liked this you might also like:
Jennifer Lee’s The Fortune Cookie Chronicles
Andrew Coe’s Chop Suey: A History of Chinese Food in the United States
Joseph Tobin’s Preschool in Three Cultures: Japan, China, and the United States
Hasia Diner’s Hungering for America: Italian, Irish and Jewish Foodways in the Age of Migration