Big Books of Spring
Paper Wife

Questions About Paper Wife

by Laila Ibrahim (Goodreads Author)

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Answered Questions (3)

How historically accurate and culturally sensitive is this book?
Eve I realize this question is old, but maybe others have the same question.

My husband is of Chinese heritage and I was raised near San Francisco. This i…moreI realize this question is old, but maybe others have the same question.

My husband is of Chinese heritage and I was raised near San Francisco. This is fairly historically accurate for the immigrant experience for the Chinese who came to America via Angel Island. If you care to, I highly recommend the PBS documentary Chinese Immigrants And The Gold Rush. Also, looking into the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 would provide more depth. The idea of "paper sons" is something I've learned a great deal of through my time in San Francisco's Chinatown and the museums there, but not much is said about there being paper wives. Stanford published a paper about the immigration issues facing Chinese wives during this time period titled "A 'Vital Question of Self-Preservation': Chinese Wives, Merchants, and American Citizens Caught in the 1924 Immigration Act" which seems to substantiate the events in this novel. The PDF of that article is freely available if you Google the title.

As far as cultural sensitivity, this is harder for me to offer an opinion on as I am not Chinese and my husband's family is from Mandarin-speaking Northern China which is different from the Cantonese-speaking south in not only language, but also in customs. China is a huge country, much too big to be represented in a book like this. However, the way certain customs is described is accurate to a lot customs and culture that encompass most of China, especially since unification. I have brought up a few concepts that I wasn't sure about to my husband and his view is that these could very well be accurate and are not at all offensive.

Hopefully this is a helpful contribution!(less)
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Is this book clean? What I mean by that is does it have really explicit language like the f-word and is it racy?
Leslie Very clean. There’s no explicit language or major details about sexual situations. It’s a really good read.
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As a Native American I understand what it is like to have non-Natives write about us and get so much wrong. So I am always cautious about authors who write about other cultures. Are there any reviews by Chinese readers?
Gail Cunningham The author participated in my book club discussion and was asked this question. She says she always has several people of the relevant culture/race/et…moreThe author participated in my book club discussion and was asked this question. She says she always has several people of the relevant culture/race/etc. do a "sensitivity read" before finalizing the books she writes. She seems to really care about getting it right.(less)
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