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Amy Tan’s writing, specifically in her novel The Joy Luck Club, supports the American Dream because she writes about Chinese immigrants and their daughters and their struggles to achieve the American Dream. She reflects upon her own life experiences and hard childhood to create the stories and characters that go through similar hardships.

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Amy Tan had to work through the challenging and destructive childhood that she was given and use it in her writing to inspire and entertain others and become the successful writer she is today. “Tan’s mother, Daisy, struggled to confront her own mother’s suicide when she was young, and Daisy herself threatened suicide, which impacted her relationship with Tan.” (Gale: Amy Tan) Tan was given a very hard and traumatic childhood, but she overcame her hardships to achieve the American Dream. Her works represent that the American Dream is possible to achieve because her works reflect her own life and how she herself achieved her American Dream.

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Amy Tan is a Chinese American author who is best known for her novel The Joy Luck Club. In addition to writing novels for adults, Tan has penned children's books and memoirs. Tan's novels often center on mother-daughter relationships, partly because of her own complicated relationship with her mother. Tan often weaves semiautobiographical details into her writing when she creates characters who must move often as children and experience great loss as young adults. Tan has also contributed to numerous periodicals including Harper's Bazaar and The New Yorker.

Critical Thinking Questions

Why did Tan most likely start out in business writing before transitioning to fiction writing?

How did Tan's being raised by immigrant parents most likely affect her stories?

Why do you think Tan decided to write her 2017 memoirs after her editor encouraged her to? What benefit do you think authors get from writing memoirs?

Early Life and Writing

Tan was born in 1952 in California to Chinese immigrants who arrived in the United States in the 1940s. Tan's family lived in the San Francisco Bay Area but throughout Tan's childhood often moved from home to home, which greatly influenced Tan's childhood and social life, experiences that she incorporates into her novels. Tan's mother, Daisy, struggled to confront her own mother's suicide when she was young, and Daisy herself threatened suicide, which impacted her relationship with Tan.

When Tan was only fourteen years old, her older brother Peter died of a malignant brain tumor, and a year later, her father-a Baptist minister and an electrical engineer-also passed away from a brain tumor. Tan's mother, who was convinced her family was cursed, embarked on a trip to Europe with Tan and her younger brother soon after their father's death.

When Tan returned to the United States, she finished high school one year early and then earned a bachelor's degree in English and linguistics and a master's degree in linguistics. While Tan wanted to earn a living through her writing, her mother was skeptical that she would be able to support herself in this way. Nevertheless, Tan landed a steady job as a business writer after graduating college and also married attorney Louis DeMattei in the 1970s.

Fiction Writing and The Joy Luck Club

While working as a business writer, Tan also began writing fiction, collaborating with other writers at a workshop about her short stories. In 1986 she published her first short story in the literary magazine FM Five, and the story was eventually reprinted in other outlets, spurring Tan to continue her more creative endeavors. In the late 1980s, with her mother, Tan traveled to China, where she met her three half-sisters for the first time.

In 1989, Tan published her first novel, The Joy Luck Club, which recounted the experiences of Chinese American immigrants struggling to achieve the American dream. The club in the book's title refers to a group of friends who come together for support, lending money to those who need it, creating bonds, and overcoming obstacles along the way. The Joy Luck Club, which focuses on mother-daughter relationships and family, was incredibly popular, in part because characters who were Chinese American immigrants were uncommon at the time in American pop culture. After spending more than forty weeks on the New York Times Best Sellers list, the novel captured the interest of Hollywood producers, who became interested in converting it into a movie. Tan helped produce and write the script for a movie version of The Joy Luck Club, which was released in 1993.

After the success of her first novel, Tan continued writing, publishing The Kitchen God's Wife (1991), which describes the life of a Chinese American girl growing up in California, immigrants' lives, and family secrets. In 1995, Tan published the novel The Hundred Secret Senses, which was based on stories that Tan's mother told her about her childhood. In 1999 Tan contracted Lyme disease, which eventually spread to her brain and became chronic, causing Tan to have seizures and hallucinations. Despite her illness, Tan published a collection of autobiographical essays called The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings, in which she reveals to readers details about her upbringing and family.

A Thriving Career

Tan's next novel, The Bonesetter's Daughter (2003) describes the relationship between LuLing Young, a Chinese American immigrant, and her daughter Ruth. Her 2005 novel Saving Fish from Drowning was a slight departure for Tan as it told about an American tourist traveling in Asia, rather than about immigrant family dynamics. In 2013, Tan published the novel The Valley of Amazement, which is partially set in historical China.

While Tan's writing was clearly affected by her relationship with her mother, her father's Baptist faith also influenced her storytelling. Tan explained that stories in the Bible influenced her fiction along with her father's own fiery, emotional sermons. Tan also cites fairytales and stories about her mother's childhood as influencing her work.

Tan also published the children's books The Moon Lady (1992) and Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat (1994). In The Moon Lady, sisters Maggie, Lily, and June listen to their grandmother's stories. Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat features a cat living in historic China. In addition to her previously published autobiographical short stories, in 2017, Tan published the memoir, Where the Past Begins: A Writer's Memoir . Tan, who felt that she had already incorporated details about her life in her stories and novels, explained that she had not envisioned taking the time to write the memoir until her editor urged her to share more about her life. Tan explained that she used the memoir to explore memories of her life that had surfaced when she was writing fiction.

Did You Know?

Wayne Wang directed the 1993 film The Joy Luck Club. The movie, which was a critical and popular success, stared Tsai Chin, France Nuyen, Lisa Lu, and Kieu Chinh. It won multiple awards, including a BFTA award for the best adapted screenplay. The movie is still seen as one of the most important films made about Chinese American families and the Chinese American immigrant experience.

Source Citation

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Amy Tan is a Chinese American author who is best known for her novel The Joy Luck Club. In addition to writing novels for adults, Tan has penned children's books and memoirs. Tan's novels often center on mother-daughter relationships, partly because of her own complicated relationship with her mother.

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The Joy Luck Club supports the American Dream because it follows families that came from China to the United States as they try to achieve the American Dream and learn American culture. “The third section, 'American Translation,' deals with the generational divide between young people and older people, with young people seeking objects that promote their superficial appearance and older people seeking things that promote lasting value.” (Gale: The Joy Luck Club) The story represents some of the differences in how younger people see the American Dream compared to those who are older and how they see it. The characters each have their own idea of the American Dream, and how they can achieve it.

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Amy Tan's first major work, The Joy Luck Club, is a collection of short stories told from the perspectives of Chinese immigrants to America and their daughters. It is organized in four parts, each of which tells a related series of short stories from different points of view. The book was praised by critics and popular with readers, serving as a strong beginning to the author's literary career.

Critical Thinking Questions

How were Tan's own childhood experiences reflected in The Joy Luck Club?

Why might children of immigrants see their own lives reflected in The Joy Luck Club?

How might the lives of the children of immigrants differ from the lives of the children of native citizens?

Life of Amy Tan

Amy Ruth Tan was born on February 19, 1952, in Oakland, California, to Chinese-American immigrants. Tan was the middle child of her family, and had both an older brother and a younger brother. She spent her early life in the San Francisco Bay Area, where her parents had decided to settle to make a new life. They moved around the area rapidly, with Tan moving to new homes more than ten times.

When Tan was fifteen, both her father and her older brother passed away from complications resulting from brain tumors. Tan's mother feared that her family was being attacked by a curse, and to avoid future deaths, took both Tan and her younger brother to Europe. The family settled in Montreux, Switzerland, where Tan spent several years before returning to the United States for college.

Tan secured a bachelor's degree with a double major in English and linguistics, then earned a master's degree in linguistics, before taking a position as a development specialist for government programs serving children with disabilities. She later changed careers and became a freelance writer for major businesses, while writing fiction in her spare time. Her fiction work quickly grew in popularity, and she received numerous offers to publish a book of her short stories. She named the resulting collection The Joy Luck Club.

Connections: The Joy Luck Club Film

The Joy Luck Club novel was adapted into a film of the same name, directed by Hong Kong-American director Wayne Wang. The film starred Tsai Chin, France Nuyen, Lisa Lu, and Kieu Chinh as the members of the Joy Luck Club. Critics praised the film, and it earned more than thirty million dollars in the United States.

The Joy Luck Club

The short story collection The Joy Luck Club is split into four sections, each of which is preceded by a parable that introduces the themes of that section. The stories revolve around women who belong to a mahjong club called the Joy Luck Club and their daughters. For this reason, all of the stories in the collection are related.

The first section, "Feathers from a Thousand Li Away," includes the stories "The Joy Luck Club," "Scar," "The Red Candle," and "The Moon Lady." The section deals with the linguistic difficulties that commonly occur between immigrant parents and their children. It discusses a daughter who cannot appreciate her good fortune in America because she has not faced the difficulties her mother did in China. Because of the language barrier between mother and daughter, the mother is unable to tell her daughter about her past in a nuanced, articulate fashion. The ensuing short stories in that section deal with translation difficulties between family members and generational gaps. Each story discusses an older immigrant's childhood in China through the lens of an experienced immigrant.

The second section, "The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates," expands on the earlier themes of translation issues between immigrant parents and their children, and deals with the difficulties that may come from the loss of the wisdom traditionally passed down from parent to child. It also includes the themes of control, especially the power struggles that often occur between parents and their children. "The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates" includes the short stories "Rules of the Game," "The Voice from the Wall," "Half and Half," and "Two Kinds." Each story is framed as an American daughter of Chinese immigrants telling a story about her childhood in California.

The third section, "American Translation," deals with the generational divide between young people and older people, with young people seeking objects that promote their superficial appearance and older people seeking things that promote lasting value. It includes the stories "Rice Husband," "Four Directions," "Without Wood," and "Best Quality." Each story involves the daughters of Chinese immigrants to America discussing the ways in which their parents tried to mold them.

The final section, "Queen Mother of the Western Skies," deals with themes of innocence and experience, especially how the accumulation of experience often results in the gradual loss of innocence. It includes the short stories "Magpies," "Waiting Between the Trees," "Double Face," and "A Pair of Tickets." Each story tells about the experiences of the daughters of immigrants attempting to mold the lives of their own daughters.

The book was praised by critics and was popular with readers, and cemented Tan's place in literary circles. However, it was also criticized for perpetuating Asian stereotypes. Tan went on to publish six more full-length novels, a nonfiction book, and several other literary works.

Source Citation

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Amy Tan's first major work, The Joy Luck Club, is a collection of short stories told from the perspectives of Chinese immigrants to America and their daughters. It is organized in four parts, each of which tells a related series of short stories from different points of view.

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The Joy Luck Club supports the American Dream because of the time period that it is in. “While The Joy Luck Club was published in 1989, it is set in pre-World War II China and contemporary San Francisco. The two settings strengthen the contrast between the cultures that Tan depicts through her characters and their relationships. Pre-World War II China was a country heavily embroiled in conflict. San Francisco, however, offered freedom and peace.” (Gale: Historical Context: The Joy Luck Club) Conditions in China during pre-World War II were not good, but the United States was increasing in modernity and industrialization quickly. The United States was seen as a great country to be in, and the American Dream a very popular goal for immigrants, such as the characters in The Joy Luck Club.

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While The Joy Luck Club was published in 1989, it is set in pre-World War II China and contemporary San Francisco. The two settings strengthen the contrast between the cultures that Tan depicts through her characters and their relationships. Pre-World War II China was a country heavily embroiled in conflict. San Francisco, however, offered freedom and peace. In writing the novel, Tan wanted to portray not only the importance of mother/daughter relationships but also the dignity of the Chinese people.

China's history covers years of tradition yet also decades of change. While the Chinese people consistently honor the personal qualities of dignity, respect, self-control, and obedience, they have not so continually pledged allegiance to their leaders. The first documented Chinese civilization was the Shang dynasty (c. 1523-c. 1027 bc). Various dynasties ruled over the years, ending with the Manchu dynasty in 1912. The dynasties saw peace, expansion, and technological and artistic achievement as well as warfare and chaos. Foreign intervention, particularly by Japan, created instability in the country, and internal struggles often prevented the Chinese from uniting. The area of Manchuria in northeast China, while legally belonging to China, had many Japanese investments such as railways and as such was under the control of the Japanese. This led to anti-Manchu sentiment and an eventual revolution. After civil war and additional strife, the Nationalists and Communists fought the Japanese in the second Sino-Japanese War and won when Japan was defeated by the Allies of World War II in 1945.

It is just before this victory that the mothers' stories start. Japanese aggression led to a foreign military presence on Chinese soil, and Suyuan's story in particular details the flight from the invading Japanese that was made by many Chinese. After World War II, with Japan preoccupied in recovering from their defeat, China once again became embroiled in a civil war between the Nationalists, who had been in power for several years, and the Communists, who wished to establish a new form of government. The civil war ended in 1949 with the formation of the People's Republic of China, and the Communists have held power in China since then.

Chinese Immigration to America

After the United States abolished slavery after the Civil War, freeing many of the African Americans who had worked in fields and farms, there arose a great need for manual laborers. Migrants from China filled a large part of this need, especially in the West, where rapid expansion required people to build railroads and towns. Although greatly outnumbered by white immigrants from European nations, the number of Chinese arriving in America alarmed white settlers in the West. In 1882 Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which prohibited the immigration of Chinese laborers to the United States. Although there were less than 300,000 total Asian immigrants to the U.S. in the years between 1880 and 1909, immigration restrictions on Chinese and other Asians were tightened in 1902 and again in 1917. These laws were repealed in 1943, and in 1965 Congress passed a law which abolished immigration quotas based on national origin. In the 1980s and 1990s, China has placed in the top ten countries sending legal immigrants to the U.S. (illegal immigration is a growing problem), with almost 39,000 immigrants admitted in 1992.

Chinese immigrants often faced considerable prejudice in their new country. In the early part of the century, Chinese immigrant children attended segregated schools in the "Chinatowns" where they lived. During World War II, when Japanese Americans faced hostility and internment because of Japan's involvement in the war, Chinese Americans also encountered prejudice from people who mistook them for Japanese, although they were not deprived of property by the government. This struggle for acceptance is reflected in the novel as both mothers and daughters wish to excel in "American" society. Just as the United States has learned to value contributions of Americans of various backgrounds, the daughters in The Joy Luck Club learn to value their own Chinese heritage.

Source Citation

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While The Joy Luck Club was published in 1989, it is set in pre-World War II China and contemporary San Francisco. The two settings strengthen the contrast between the cultures that Tan depicts through her characters and their relationships. Pre-World War II China was a country heavily embroiled in conflict.

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"Amy Tan." Gale In Context Online Collection, Gale, 2020. Gale In Context: High School, link.gale.com/apps/doc/SPEOIF871198980/SUIC?u=clar33415&sid=bookmark-SUIC&xid=8464019c. Accessed 17 Feb. 2022.

"Historical Context: The Joy Luck Club." EXPLORING Novels, Gale, 2003. Gale In Context: High School, link.gale.com/apps/doc/EJ2111500095/SUIC?u=clar33415&sid=bookmark-SUIC&xid=21b25671. Accessed 17 Feb. 2022.

"The Joy Luck Club." Gale In Context Online Collection, Gale, 2020. Gale In Context: High School, link.gale.com/apps/doc/ZGCNTT051755133/SUIC?u=clar33415&sid=bookmark-SUIC&xid=46e9d09c. Accessed 17 Feb. 2022.