Patriot Number One

American Dreams in Chinatown

By: Lauren Hilgers

Narrated by: Angela Lin

Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's summary

Named one of the Best Books of 2018 by:

• 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.

©2018 Lauren Hilgers (P)2018 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“Rich and absorbing.... A penetrating profile of a man and much more besides: an indelible portrait of his wife and their marriage; a canny depiction of Flushing, Queens; a lucid anatomy of Chinese politics and America’s immigration system.... Hilgers observes all this with a sharp eye and an open heart.... As evocative and engrossing as a novel.” (New York Times)

“A superb account of Chinese immigrants in America... Stealing the show is Zhuang, irrepressible, quixotic, an endlessly scheming operator who finds his calling in activism.... [Patriot Number One] tells a powerful human story about America and the world in 2018.” (San Francisco Chronicle)

“Excellent...a well-researched, informative look at the realities of Chinese immigration. It also depicts one man’s battle to figure out who he is.” (Wall Street Journal)

What are your other languages?

nonfiction, narrative,China, Chinese-culture, immigrants, NYC
Original review Feb 18, 2018
I don't know about you, but I don't think that I could master reading Chinese characters or even do a credible communication in even one of the many dialects. The reverse of this is true for each of the many Chinese immigrants in New York and elsewhere in the English speaking world.
This book gives the rest of us a view into Wukan village life and indignities, the government reaction to low level rebellion, the need and process of political asylum seeking, the incredible monetary and emotional costs, and the harsh realities for one courageous man and his wife, their families, friends and neighbors in the years from 2012 to 2017. It is written by an English speaking magazine reporter fluent in Chinese and able to transliterate names, and this chronicling is also documented and footnoted.
Follow along with the poorlt educated young man who became Patriot Number One in an effort to dissolve corruption in local and provincial government and work for social justice. He married an educated but introverted young woman, spent time in jail, had a son, and became too problematic for the government. Then began the process of leaving the small son with the grandparents, consolidating his funds, borrowing money from family and friends, planning and executing the move from China (without alerting the government), and then coming as just another immigrant to the Chinese community in Flushing, Queens, New York.
Follow along with the tribulations of their living in one small room (which cost as much as a one room apartment in the Midwest), finding trustworthy contacts among the countless strangers, finding employment when unable to understand the language, obtaining political asylum status, working 60 to 70 hours per week, paying taxes and Social Security, and still sending money back to both her parents and his. There are good people and good luck in their lives as well, making this a fascinating but exhausting reading experience. It's also a good insight and reminder to those of us who have parents and grandparents who had similar experiences and also overcame it all.
I requested and received a prepublication copy from Net Galley.
Don't miss this gem.
12/05/2018 Just bought the audio, Angela Lin is remarkable! It is obvious that English is not her second language, but the sound of the Chinese names and phrases seems so unstudied that I wonder if IT is her second.