Lac Su Responds

I hope you saw this:

We’ve done a few pieces on Amy Chua’s article, and I want to contend this has little to do with race and nation and much to do with personality type and personal health.

(CNN) — When CNN called me this week to see if I’d share my thoughts on the backlash surrounding Amy Chua’s Wall Street Journal article “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior,” I told them I would have much to say. You see, I was raised by two tigers.

My Chinese father and Vietnamese mother personified the parenting style advocated by Chua. Chua’s January 8 article — based on her new memoir “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” –unleashed a firestorm of criticism for its unabashed assertion that the harsh stereotypically Chinese style of parenting is superior to that of the West.

I received more than 1,000 emails from fans, family, and friends the day Chua’s article ran. When I finally had a free moment to read the article (writing isn’t my day job), I was briefly overwhelmed by a visceral, gushing panic.

You see, growing up in a home like Chua’s was no piece of cake, and although I’m close to 40 now, I still bear wounds that haven’t healed.

I believe that Chua’s abusive parenting is motivated by her own unhappiness. How do I know this? My father told me so. He’s the man whose tiger-infused parenting produced the catch phrase that became the title of my memoir, I Love Yous Are for White People.

The only difference between Chua’s and my father’s parenting technique is that Chua never laid a hand on her daughters (as far as we know).

All the same, Chua’s modus operandi is to keep her daughters in check via the emotional mind game — brain-washing, derision, negative reinforcement, and reverse psychology.

Writing I Love Yous Are for White People helped me to cope with the wounds the tigers’ claws left behind. Since its release I’ve met countless others who bare similar scars.