Amy Chua, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

[sanguinity]

12. Amy Chua, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.

So, this is the book that the Wall Street Journal cherrypicked to create an inflammatory "excerpt", which then kicked off a media shitstorm of sexism, racism, and xenophobia.

There is a lot to be said about the social politics of that shitstorm (roughly chronological order):

• Julianne Hing at The Atlantic: Thoughts From the Daughter of a Chinese Mother
  
• Jeff Yang at SFGate: Mother, superior?
  
• DeepaD at Dreamwidth: On Parenting as a Hyphenate
  
• GK at guriaking.org: US model minorities
  
• Oliver Wang at The Atlantic: Notes of a Native Tiger Son, Part 1, Part 2.
  
• Julianne Hing at Colorlines: "Tiger Mothers" Are Driven by U.S. Inequity, Not Chinese Culture; follow-up
  
• Bao Phi at Racialicious: My late and messy reaction to this whole 'Chinese Mothers Are Superior' hubbub.

Please note that pretty much EVERY article above is about the deliberately inflammatory cut-and-paste that the WSJ published, or the fallout, and not about the book itself. Those links are absolutely worth reading (especially read DeepaD and GK!), but they don't really answer the question: what did Chua say, or intend to say?

Here are some people who did get to read the book:

• Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld at The New York Post: Why I love my strict Chinese mom (Yes, that's Chua's older daughter.)
  
• Jen Wang at Disgrasian: You Hated the Excerpt, Now Read the Book

Before we go any farther, let me note: I am not Asian, and I very firmly feel that it is not my place to police Amy Chua (linked article was written before the WSJ cut-and-paste job was revealed) on whether she's contributing to Anti-Asian racism or not -- as far as I'm concerned, people who are safe from a particular oppression do not have the ethical right to criticize people who experience that oppression on how they're responding to that oppression wrong. (YMMV, of course, but for myself: I believe I should be spending my time criticizing up the kyrarchical lattice than down, and as a corollary, I belive the "What were you thinking!?" conversation should be left to peers.) However, others may discuss whether she's doing it wrong in the comments if they feel the need.

Additionally, there are intersections here with respect to racism, sexism, and classism (at the very least!): please make sure you're up on your 101s when commenting. Also, respect that other commenters may be coming from different places than you, especially concerning the question of whether or not Amy Chua had an abusive relationship with her children: when commenting, please leave space for other people's experiences.

So, my own impressions of the book:

( Potential dealbreakers and triggers )

( Oh, so this is a stand-up comedy routine! )

( Punching up or down? )

( Shit gets real. )

( Was she abusive? )

( ...and back to stand-up again. )

( Other kyrarchical stuff to note )

...and I might maybe have run out of things to say?

It's hard for me to get a firm read on the book, especially with the way she drops in and out of hyperbolic style, but there is a lot that is worthwhile here (assuming that the potential deal-breakers aren't your personal deal-breakers). Also, Disgrasian is precisely right: the WSJ article doesn't tell you why you might want to read the book.

All that said, I'm not at all sure how widely I would recommend the book to non-Asians -- especially non-Asians who have already been primed to hate Chua. While Chua does have some good points about the systemic pressures around parenting as a hyphenate, especially as an immigrant hyphenate, I can't help but think that there probably are books that are clearer on that. And if someone has already got a prejudice against "Asian mothers", there's plenty of easy fuel for that here. (As the WSJ cherrypicking demonstrates!)

But I'll back up those who were protesting that the book that the media shitstorm was about doesn't actually exist. Because it doesn't. This is a different book.

ETA:

• Request for recs in the comments. (POC authors only, please.)
  
• buria_q points out the sensationalist "China rising" narrative in the media around the book.