"A moving account of a young woman's struggle to shape her identity and imagine a future she can call her own. Against the odds, M. Elaine Mar emerges whole, and the story she tells is unforgettable." —A. Manette Ansay, author of River Angel and Sister
One woman's journey from Hong Kong to Harvard, told through the eyes of an immigrant who exists in two worlds, belongs to neither, and struggles to reconcile her place in both.
When she was five years old, M. Elaine Mar and her mother emigrated from Hong Kong to Denver to join her father in a community more Chinese than American, more hungry than hopeful.
While working with her family in the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant and living in the basement of her aunt's house, Mar quickly masters English and begins to excel in school. But as her home and school life—Chinese tradition and American independence—become two increasingly disparate worlds, Mar tries desperately to navigate between them.
Adolescence and the awakening of her sexuality leave Elaine isolated and confused. She yearns for store bought clothes and falls for a red-haired boy who leads her away from the fretful eyes of her family. In his presence, Elaine is overcome by the strength of her desire—blocking out her family's visions of an arranged marriage in Hong Kong.
From surviving racist harassment in the schooIyard and trying to flip her straight hair like Farrah Fawcett, to hiding her parents' heritage and arriving alone at Harvard University, Mar's story is at once an unforgettable personal journey and an unflinching, brutal look at the realities of the American Dream.