Paper daughter

When she was five years old, M. Elaine Mar and 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. From surviving racist harassment in the schoolyard to trying to flip her…