According to the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) report Beyond Myths: The Growth of Diversity of Asian American College Freshmen: 1971 -2005, "Asian Americans are currently the fastest growing sector of the U.S. college-going population and are an extremely diverse one with tremendous variations in ethnicity, socioeconomic class, and immigration patterns," (2007, p. 1). Further, the report noted that this group of students was "attending a wide range of institutions across the

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... " (p. 1). It is within this increasingly diverse population that we find the story of Kimberly Chang, a Chinese born immigrant, in Jean Kwok's Girl in Translation. This mass-market novel is a memoir loosely based on the author's own experience of immigrating to the United States at a young age. Kwok writes with extreme precision and intimacy, describing the main character's move and transition to a foreign and poverty stricken environment. Eleven-year-old Kimberly and her mother immigrated to the United States in the early 1980's. They arrived in suburban New York at the home of her Aunt Paula, an older sister to Kimberly's mother. Prior to their arrival, Aunt Paula arranged for Kimberly and her mother to live in a run-down area of New York City and for Kimberly's mother to work at a clothing factory. The apartment did not have heat; the only heat source available was from an open oven. The apartment was infested with cockroaches and rats which Kimberly trained herself not to hear scurrying in the middle of the night while she was trying to sleep. Kimberly began school with excitement but was quickly deflated as an insensitive and sarcastic teacher quickly identifies her most self-conscious characteristic, lacking skills to speak and write English. Kimberly, however, found her confidence academically by excelling in math and science. Outside the classroom, she became an observer of culture, dissecting each interaction for cues. Kimberly was able to gain insight into the culture of her elementary school peers by befriending a fellow classmate, Annette. Annette explained what the boys were saying, why being a "know-it-all" was a problem, and what was meant by the "birds and the bees" (p. 62). Each day after school Kimberly traveled alone across the New York City subway system to Chinatown to work alongside her mother in the clothing factory until late at night. Both adults and children were expected to work the long and arduous hours at the factory. Like Kimberly's mother, hardly any of the factory workers spoke English and, therefore, this work was their only way to make a living and survive in the city. Kimberly and her mother were charged with the task of "finishing" garments: "There was a long table and a towering stack of pressed clothing, which we were to hang, sort, belt or sash, tag and then bag in a sheath of plastic" (p. 31). Kimberly and her mother were paid 1.5 cents per skirt, and a portion of these funds were refunded to Aunt Paula for her generosity in paying for the two to come to the United States and for the rent on their apartment. Readers quickly grasp the mind of a child trying to make sense of a very desperate situation as Kimberly counts everything purchased in skirts-a $2.99 dictionary to help her with her school assignments cost 200 finished skirts, the subway was 100 skirts, a pack of gum cost seven skirts.