Author of Everything in America: From Beijing to Belonging
HONGWU WANG
Hongwu Wang is the author of EVERYTHING IN AMERICA: From Beijing to Belonging, a memoir chronicling his journey from a Beijing hutong during the Cultural Revolution to becoming a partner at a Chicago investment firm.
Born in 1964, he witnessed the Tiananmen Square protests, immigrated to America in 1993, earned two master's degrees (Mathematics and Computer Science), and spent 24 years in investment management—building systems, navigating identity, and learning what it costs to belong in a country that both welcomes you and asks you to hide who you are.
He retired in 2024 to focus on writing. He lives in Oak Park, Illinois with his husband Mark, whom he has married four times.
EVERYTHING IN AMERICA: From Beijing to Belonging
From a Beijing hutong with no running water to partnership at a Chicago investment firm, this memoir explores the mathematics of belonging: What do immigrants sacrifice when we succeed? What does it cost to hide who we are? And how do you build a home in a country that doesn't quite know what to do with you?
A story of hunger, escape, systems built in silence, and four marriages to the same man.
Read an Excerpt
The demonstrations began with mourning. On April 15, 1989, Hu Yaobang died—a reformist leader who had been forced to resign two years earlier for being too sympathetic to students. Young people gathered in Tiananmen Square to honor his memory, but the mourning quickly became something larger. Students began demanding transparency, calling for dialogue with the government, asking for the freedom to speak truth without fear.
What started as grief transformed into hope. The crowds grew. Students from every university in Beijing poured into the square. Then workers joined them. Teachers. Shopkeepers. Even our faculty members marched in support, carrying banners. For weeks, Beijing felt alive with possibility—chaotic and terrifying and hopeful all at once. People dared to imagine that real change might be coming, that the country was finally ready to listen to its children.
On June 1, 1989, the pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square had been going on for weeks. That day, we heard rumors that troops were moving toward Beijing, trying to enter the city. The atmosphere was tense.
Worrying about my students, I rode my bicycle to Tiananmen Square.
It was a hot day, with blazing sun and not a cloud in the sky. Metal traffic partitions sectioned off the square from Changan Boulevard. On the north side of the boulevard stood Tiananmen—the Gate of Heavenly Peace—and beyond that, the Forbidden City. On the south side were the protestors.
I parked my bike on the north side of the boulevard, east of Tiananmen, and took the underpass into the middle of the square.
The smell hit me immediately: manure and piss.
Temporary toilets had been set up on buses—just a few buckets. Over the days, they had overflowed, and urine was leaking all around the buses, pooling on the pavement in the heat.
In the center of the square, facing Tiananmen, stood a statue erected the day before: the Goddess of Democracy, made of white Styrofoam, her arm raised holding a torch. She looked fragile and defiant at the same time.
There were people everywhere as far as I could see—mostly students, some onlookers, and definitely a lot of plain-clothes police or soldiers mixed in among the crowds.
Each university had its own tent, donated by people from Hong Kong. I searched until I found my students in one of the tents. Not all of them were in the tent at that moment—they were somewhere else in the square.
The whole square looked chaotic and noisy. Loudspeakers blared competing messages. People argued, debated, sang. Some slept on the pavement. Others paced, restless, uncertain.
I sat in the tent most of the afternoon. We talked about hope, about change, about whether the government would really listen.
For dinner, we ate instant noodles and drank Coca-Cola and 7-Up—again, donated by people from Hong Kong. It was the first time I'd ever had 7-Up. It was warm and tasted awful.
Around 11 p.m., we got news that the army was attempting to march into Beijing and reach Tiananmen Square that night.
The students erupted in anger. They started throwing packets of instant noodles and food away, refusing to eat anymore, as if hunger was a form of protest.
We all sat together on the pavement, arms linked, and started singing the "Internationale"—the communist anthem, now being sung by students protesting against the Communist Party. The irony was not lost on anyone.
Sometime after midnight—maybe even later—we got news that the citizens of Beijing had successfully blocked the army from entering the city.
Cheers erupted. Everyone started celebrating, embracing, crying with relief. We had won. At least for tonight.
I started feeling hungry and wishing we hadn't thrown all the instant noodles away. It was exhausting sitting on the pavement too—the cement was hard and cold, and my legs were numb.
By dawn, I was exhausted. I got my bike and went home.
Two nights later, on June 3, gunfire woke us.