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Amy Chua

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Amy Chua at the 2007 Texas Book Festival

Amy L. Chua (simplified Chinese: 蔡美儿; traditional Chinese: 蔡美兒; pinyin: Cài Měi'ér, born 1962 in Champaign, Illinois) is the John M. Duff, Jr. Professor of Law at Yale Law School. She joined the Yale faculty in 2001 after teaching at Duke Law School. Prior to starting her teaching career, she was a corporate law associate at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton. She specializes in the study of international business transactions, law and development, ethnic conflict, and globalization and the law.

Early life

Amy Chua's parents were academics and members of the Chinese ethnic minority in the Philippines before emigrating to the United States. Amy's father, Leon O. Chua, is an Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences professor at the University of California, Berkeley and is known as the father of nonlinear circuit theory and cellular neural networks. Amy was born in 1962 in Champaign, Illinois and lived in West Lafayette, Indiana. When she was eight years old, her family moved to Berkeley, California. Chua graduated magna cum laude with an A.B. in Economics from Harvard College in 1984. She obtained her J.D. cum laude in 1987 from Harvard Law School, where she was an Executive Editor of the Harvard Law Review.[1]

Books

Chua has written three books, the first two on international affairs and the third a memoir.

Her first book, World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability (2003), explores the ethnic conflict caused in many societies by disproportionate economic and political influence of "market dominant minorities" and the resulting resentment in the less affluent majority. World on Fire examines how globalization and democratization since 1989 have affected the relationship between market dominant minorities and the wider population, including examining her own Filipino Chinese culture.

Her second book Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance – and Why They Fall (2007) examines seven major empires and posits that their success depended on their tolerance of minorities.

Her latest book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, published in January 2011, is a controversial memoir relating her experience raising two daughters using harsh parenting techniques.[2]

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

Chua, whose ethnic Chinese parents emigrated to the United States from the Philippines, published her third book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother in 2011.[3][4] The book is a memoir in which Chua explains her views on parenting, specifically as it relates to her claims of being a typical Chinese parent. Chua, whose husband is Jewish, has stated that her children speak Chinese, but they are "raised Jewish".[5]

Wall Street Journal preview and controversy

An article entitled Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior in the Wall Street Journal on January 8, 2011 contained excerpts from her book, in which Chua detailed her views on parenting as a "Chinese Mother".[6] This piece proved controversial as it appeared to advocate a very harsh child-rearing regime. Chua listed a number of rules that she said she enforced on her two daughters. According to the article they were not allowed to:

  • attend a sleepover
  • have a playdate
  • be in a school play
  • complain about not being in a school play
  • watch TV or play computer games
  • choose their own extracurricular activities
  • get any grade less than an A
  • not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama
  • play any instrument other than the piano or violin
  • not play the piano or violin.[6]

Chua also mentioned that she regularly insulted her children, for instance calling them "garbage".[2] She described various extreme threats used to ensure her children's compliance, for example threatening to burn her daughter's stuffed animals if she did not play a piano piece perfectly.[6] In one incident she denied her younger daughter either water or bathroom breaks during hours of forced piano practice.[2] Chua claimed that this is the typical behavior of a Chinese mother living in the United States, and that such tactics are necessary in order for one's children to not grow up to be complacent.[citation needed] Chua also explained that even though her native dialect is Hokkien, she made sure her children both learned to speak Mandarin by employing Mandarin-speaking babysitters.[7]

General Response

The general response to her article has been negative, with many reactions from blogs, such as "I thought it was some kind of satirical joke at first,"[8] as well as more notable news sites, such as Maureen Corrigan of NPR stating that "Amy Chua may well be nuts."[9] According to Slate, almost a century earlier, Boris Sidis made a similar claim to excellent parenting, which his family eventually regretted.[10] The Slate article also mentions that in coda to her book, when asked for input, her daughter Lulu asserts "I'm sure it's all about you anyway". Her other daughter, Sophia, suggests "It's not possible for you to tell the complete truth... You've left out so many facts. But that means no one can really understand."[11] The Washington Post, while not as critical, did suggest that "ending a parenting story when one child is only 15 seems premature."[12] MSNBC stated that the article '"reads alternately like a how-to guide, a satire or a lament."[13] MSNBC's critical response goes on to state that "The article sounds so incredible to Western readers – and many Asian ones, too – that many people thought the whole thing was satire... [but] aspects of her essay resonated profoundly with many people, especially Chinese Americans – not necessarily in a good way", citing interviews with Chinese people who explain "'When I think about my teenage years, all I can remember is constant fear, fear that she would find out I had a crush on a boy, fear that I would fail in a test, fear that she would find out I had lied to her.'" Chua, in response to questions about her book, admitted to SFGate that she is a workaholic who "is...not good at enjoying life."[14]

The article also generated positive feedback. Charles Murray of the American Enterprise Institute, for instance, argued that "large numbers of talented children everywhere would profit from Chua's approach, and instead are frittering away their gifts — they're nice kids, not brats, but they are also self-indulgent and inclined to make excuses for themselves."[15] In a poll on the Wall street Journal website regarding Chua's response to readers, two-thirds of respondents said the "Eastern" parenting model is better than the "Western" model.[7]

Chua's Defence

Chua explained in a follow-up article in the Wall Street Journal that "my actual book is not a how-to guide; it's a memoir, the story of our family's journey in two cultures, and my own eventual transformation as a mother. Much of the book is about my decision to retreat from the strict "Chinese" approach, after my younger daughter rebelled at 13."[7] Chua also claimed that "[t]he Journal basically strung together the most controversial sections of the book. And I had no idea they'd put that kind of a title on it."[16] However, a spokeswoman for the Wall Street Journal told the Columbia Journalism Review that "[w]e worked extensively with Amy's publisher, as we always do with book excerpts, and they signed off on the chosen extract in advance."[16]

In reaction to this defense, Rob Anderson of the Boston Globe presented her actions as a massive publicity stunt: "Chua is playing an intentional mental game — claiming that the method of raising children that has driven so many to therapy in their adult lives is actually the right way to parent."[17] Anderson goes on to criticize her "perpetuation of the media stereotypes of Asian-Americans that are already so prevalent in our society — quiet, obedient, good-at-math nerds that through their rigid discipline end up having deficient social skills. ". She is criticized for her reaction to the controversy she has generated: "It's not another article criticizing the Wall Street Journal for taking her 'out of context.' It's 'buy the book to get the full story.'"

Personal life

Chua lives in New Haven, Connecticut and is married to Yale Law School professor Jed Rubenfeld. She has two daughters, Sophia and Louisa ("Lulu").[6] She is the eldest of four sisters: Michelle, Katrin, and Cynthia. Katrin is a professor at Stanford University.[18] Cynthia has Down Syndrome and holds two International Special Olympics gold medals in swimming.[18][19]

References

  1. ^ Yale Law School | Faculty | Curriculum Vitae
  2. ^ a b c Zernike, Kate (January 14, 2011). "Retreat of the 'Tiger Mother'". New York Times.
  3. ^ San Francisco Chronicle review of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
  4. ^ Washington Post review of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
  5. ^ http://chrisabraham.com/2007/07/29/i-am-amazed-by-amy-chua/
  6. ^ a b c d Chua, Amy (January 8, 2011). "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior". Wall Street Journal.
  7. ^ a b c "The Tiger Mother Responds to Readers". Wall Street Journal. January 13, 2011.
  8. ^ http://shanghaiist.com/2011/01/10/tales_of_a_chinese_daughter_on_the.php
  9. ^ http://www.npr.org/2011/01/11/132833376/tiger-mothers-raising-children-the-chinese-way
  10. ^ http://www.slate.com/id/2280712/pagenum/all/#p2
  11. ^ http://www.slate.com/id/2280712/pagenum/all/#p2
  12. ^ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/07/AR2011010702516.html
  13. ^ http://behindthewall.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/01/10/5805977-chinese-or-western-who-wins-the-mommy-war-
  14. ^ http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/01/08/RVAE1H3BSG.DTL
  15. ^ http://blog.american.com/?p=24765
  16. ^ a b Chittum, Ryan (January 13, 2011). "Audit Notes: Financial Capture, Homeless, Amy Chua Criticizes WSJ". Columbia Journalism Review.
  17. ^ Anderson, Rob (January 16, 2011). "Amy Chua: Manipulating childhood trauma and Asian-American stereotypes to sell a book". Boston Globe.
  18. ^ a b Hong, Terry (January 9, 2011). "'Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,' by Amy Chua". San Francisco Chronicle.
  19. ^ http://www.ktvu.com/news/16535031/detail.html

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