Tag: Amy Chua

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The Rubenfeld-Chua Hoohah

The controversy generated by Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld’s new book The Triple Package is one of the more annoying non-news events of the year.  This past weekend alone, the book was covered by the New York Times in their Book Review insert and the widely read Sunday Magazine.

In spite of all of the exploitative but it’s not racist publicity that has landed the book so much free media exposure, The Triple Package isn’t about race. It’s focus instead is on the authors’ claim that what leads to certain measures of success in the U.S. is a … Read more “The Rubenfeld-Chua Hoohah”

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A Word on Amy Chua

When I first saw the New York Post’s scathing review of Amy Chua’s new book, The Triple Package, the phrase “triple threat” immediately came to mind. Surely Chua’s PR hawks would’ve warned her off using the word “threat” to describe select, successful, largely immigrant “cultural groups.” After all, today’s white U.S. workers are rightfully anxious about the future, but wrongfully suspicious of “the other”– undocumented workers, Muslims, China as a whole, young black women who knock on the door asking for help… But I believe “threat” would’ve been a more honest word choice.

I haven’t read the book, nor am … Read more “A Word on Amy Chua”

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Thanksgiving Reflections: An Ode to a Korean-American Mother

 

Like most good, loving, and respectful daughters, I gripe about my mom all the time. So recently, when three of my friends began to share lighthearted stories about their “overbearing” mothers while we huddled together on a crowded subway platform, I knew I was well qualified to contribute my own. “My mother is ridiculous,” I started. “This one time in high school–”

“–But your story is understandable,” one friend interrupted. “You have a ‘tiger mom’. Our mothers have no excuses.”

I stared blankly, completely annoyed and unsure how to respond, while all three of my buddies on the platform

… Read more “Thanksgiving Reflections: An Ode to a Korean-American Mother”