JS-78.3
Reading "Battle Hymn of Tiger Mom" As an Educational Biography
In this presentation, I explore Amy Chua’s "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom" as a biographical account of child rearing by a second generation Chinese American. I examine Chua’s account in relation to Asian immigrant experiences in the United States. The questions asked include: How does Chua tell about the ways in which she raised her children to attain high educational achievement in U.S. society? What were the limitation and (unintended) consequences of her strategy? How can/should we situate Chua’s biographical account in the history of Asian American social, cultural, political, and educational experiences?
First, I situate Chua’s account of child rearing in the context of existing quantitative and qualitative educational research on the educational achievement of Asian Americans. I review the literature on educational attainment of Asian Americans to point out the missing area is Asian Americans’ self account of education at home, i.e., how they raise their children.
Second, I analyze Chua’s account. Chua comes from an intellectually elite family, and she herself is also an intellectually elite. She has very distinct idea on “success,” and her children are successful so far, but Chua's account also implies that the Chinese way of raising children will have some pit falls because it does not nurture some important American values such as creativity, leadership, and independence. I argue that Chua’s account, while being somewhat extreme, shares some common characteristics of the dominant discourse of Asian Americans as a model minority. I also suggest that analyzing the biographical account of second-generation mothers is advantageous, as they know the ways their foreign-born parents raised their children and they are very conscious of how they raise their children.