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Amy Ruth Tan by Derek Thompson Williams

Amy Ruth Tan was born in 1952 to Chinese-American parents who met in the United States. She was pressured to excel in school, and even though her brother and father died of brain tumors within a year of each other, she was accepted into medical school. She disappointed her mother when she dropped out of medical school in order to pursue a B.A. and masters in English at San Jose State in California. She first used her degree to begin a lucrative career of a business writer, which she made a significant amount of money doing. She decided though, that she was becoming a work a holic and joined a local fiction writer’s workshop and her first major novel, __The Joy Luck Club__ was published in 1989 and became a great success. Tan attempts to bring to light the difficulties faced by Asian Americans, who feel they are out of place in American society, even though they possess American citizenship. Another problem that Tan attempts to confront is the difficult relationships between Chinese mothers and American born daughters and their generation and cultural gaps. Tan herself was shunned by her own mother because she was too "American" and rebellious, not attempting to embrace her Chinese heritage as well as her mother would have liked. Tan has a few recurring themes in her works that allow her to make her political statements within her literature. One of the themes that occur in many of Tan's works is the American daughter not being up to par with the beliefs and morals of a Chinese mother. The Chinese are much stricter than Americans about their children, and their behavior. When Tan ran off with a boyfriend earlier in her childhood, and dropped out of medical school against her mothers wishes, she disappointed her mother, and further alienated herself from her Chinese upbringing. This author, Amy Tan, is attempting to bring to light the fact that even though a girl may make mistakes or rebel, she should still be loved by a parent. She also attempts to bring to light the tragedy that she faced earlier on in her life when her father and brother both died suddenly from brain tumors. She never learned to cope with this disaster in her life, and her application of this scenario to her literary characters is a way for her to achieve some sort of mourning over the loss of her family. This author contributes to American literature in many significant ways. Firstly, she allows the typical American to get a view into the life of a Chinese-American immigrant, and consequently, into the Chinese culture. She also offers the American public the benefit of seeing how our society is not as strict as the Chinese mainstream society. This is accomplished by explaining how the typical American life is not acceptable to Tan's mother, but only being something great, such as a doctor or a concert musician. To conclude, Amy Tan is a great American author. She has contributed much to the American public through her works, and allowed us to explore the harsh life of an immigrant, which many of us have never seen.

"Amy Tan." __Student Resource Center Gold Document__. 21 May 2008 .

The database article Amy Tan contains comments and criticisms of Tan’s work by Feng. The book lays out the story of Amy Tan’s life, and her different works, such as The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God’s Wife. The article also tells of how Tan tries to tell her life story through her writings. I plan to use the information in this article for my Wiki entry, mainly to gain an understanding of Tan’s writing style. It would be better, however, if this site contained more facts about the author’s instead of people’s reviews of her book.

"Amy Tan." __Student Resource Center Gold Document__. 21 May 2008 .

The article from the database, Amy Tan, has many different parts of Amy Tan explained. This article explains her childhood and adolescence in detail while still explaining her two most famous published works and career. It dives deeply into why she became an author and also why she attempted to show the American people her suffering as an outsider. This article would be better improved if it was longer and contained more information and criticisms of Tan.

Bloom, Harold. __Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club__. Broomall, PA: Chelsea House, 2003.

The book, Amy Tan’s the Joy Luck Club, explains how the author’s first book made such a splash with the mainstream American public. This book also included a timeline that aided me greatly in creating my trading card. I would not recommend this as a source for anyone else, however, because it contained mostly authors rambling about social issues and not enough about the author.

Bloom, Harold. __Asian-American Writers__. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 1999.  The book, Asian-American Writers, contained much useful information about Tan, such as why she became the author that she is today, and the tragedy and hardship she went through. It also explains how she began her career at a boring job, and then became a successful writer who explored many topics of Chinese-American society. This book helped me to form my wiki entry and in my trading card.