The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother: Text-to-Society Blog

My chosen second memoir is The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua. Chua narrates her experiences as an authoritative parent, and raising her third generation Chinese daughters, in the United States. Chua struggles with bringing up her own children, attempting to utilize the same techniques that her parents, Chinese immigrants, used on her as a child.  However, her daughters, especially Lulu, grow rebellious as they become young adults, wanting to make choices for themselves, and defied their mother's dictatorial parenting.

Amy Chua, author, and her two daughters, Lulu (violinist) and Sophia (pianist)

Chua narrates how she subjected her children to long hours of music practice. At the beginning of the book, the practicing hours were around two per day, but by the end the number had jumped to six hours a day. As her children grew older, they struggled with questions of their racial background, as they are half Chinese and half Caucasian. As a result, they feel as if they don't belong to either ethnic groups. Furthermore, their authoritative mother's upbringing and their experiences in the "Western" world causes what Chua refers to as "a bitter clash of cultures": the daughters' perceptions of the two widely different cultures interfered with each other, leaving them wondering where they really belong. The experiences of Amy and her children prompt me to believe that a central idea of the memoir is identity and belonging to a certain culture, similar to my last memoir, The Color of Water. This can be seen in the memoir on page 56: "'Mommy- I'm not Chinese.' 'Yes you are.' ' No, Mommy- you're the only one who thinks so. No one in China thinks I'm Chinese. No one in America thinks I'm Chinese.'"

Therefore, a realization that came to me upon in my reading is that the environment that one lives in can bring about questions of identity and belonging. According to University of Wisconsin-Madison, struggles come about as generations of immigrant families in the United States progress. For example, the first generation is generally hardworking and feels like a foreigner in the United States, but maintains their identity as a citizen of whatever country they emigrated from. The second and third generations on the other hand, typically identify more as American, as they are almost exclusively raised in the United States. Some of these people struggle with questions about their culture, such as maintaining their heritage, whereas others completely relinquish that heritage. This struggle can be seen in the memoir, as Amy fears that the "Chinese" way will be lost in her children, and tries to diminish all "Western" practices in their household. 

http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~oliver/soc220/Lectures220/General/ImmigrationSlides.pdf

These types of issues can be seen in all sorts of environments. As there are clashes between different beliefs, there is always struggles to understand where one stands in the situation. I am enjoying this book a lot, and I highly recommend it.