Chinese Dissident Finds Struggles, Independence In America After Immigrating
Lauren Hilgers's new book Patriot Number One: American Dreams in Chinatown charts the journey of Chinese dissident Zhuang Liehong, who immigrates to Queens, N.Y., from his village in Guangdong, China.
The Flushing neighborhood of New York's Queens burough is home to the largest population of Chinese immigrants in any city outside Asia.
Zhuang Liehong is one of those immigrants. He arrived in 2014 from Wukan, a small village in the Guangdong province of southern China.
When he first arrived in Flushing, he says it felt like a city in China.
"Other than the buildings and Chinese store signs, just look at the pedestrians on the streets," he says. "They're mainly Chinese people."
As much as Flushing felt like China, Liehong says there
