From country to country

A deeply reported look at the Chinese immigrant community in the United States, casting a new light on what it means to seek the American dream

Nearly three years ago, journalist Lauren Hilgers received an unexpected call. Hello, Lauren! a man shouted in halting Mandarin. We might be seeing you in New York again soon! The voice belonged to Zhuang Liehong, a Chinese man who had been arrested in his home country for leading a string of protests, and whom Hilgers had met the previous year while reporting a story. Despite zero contacts and a shaky grasp of English, Zhuang explained that he and his wife, Little Yan, had a plan to escape from their American tour group and move to Flushing, Queens, to escape persecution back home. A few weeks later, they arrived on Hilgers's doorstep.
With a novelistic eye for character and detail, Hilgers weaves their story with a larger investigation of the Chinese community in Flushing, one of the fastest-growing immigrant enclaves in the US. There's Tang Yuanjun, a former Tiananmen Square leader who has come to terms with living a shadow life in America as his friends and family continue their own in China. And Karen, one of Little Yan's friends from night school, who was kidnapped by her relatives yet remains hopeful, working part-time in a nail salon as she attends vocational school for hotel work. 

Patriot Number One is Hilgers's nuanced, through-the-looking-glass story of the twenty-first-century American dream. Zhuang and Little Yan's challenges reveal a world hidden in plain sight: the byzantine network of employment agencies and language schools, of underground banks and illegal dormitories that allow immigrants to survive. Amid a raging immigration debate on the national stage, Hilgers's deeply reported and beautifully wrought account paints a revealing portrait of just what it takes to survive.



Being an immigrant is an experience that i had no knowledge on, till this book came. I saw the life of one, i was on his shoes and eyes; a great character development and a excelent way of show how hard is the life when you move out of your country and also how to get used to everything.

RPO by Ernest Cline

As soon as i got the book i started reading it, and i don't regret. I almost eat this book, i read it in just one day because it was so good that i couldn't stop, the book was better than what i was expecting which is good because it took me by surprise how much i enjoy it. If you are a gamer like i am you are truly going to enjoy this.