Tan, Amy

Tan, Amy

Amy Tan, award winning American novel writer of Chinese descent often describing mother-daughter relationships as well as relationships between Chinese American women and their immigrant parents.

Tan was born on February 19, 1952 to Chinese immigrants in Oakland, California. America was a place of refuge for her family; her mother fled to America to escape her abusive first husband and Tan’s father immigrated to avoid the Chinese Civil War.

As a girl, Tan rejected her Chinese heritage. She disliked her Asian appearance and even slept with a clothespin on her nose to narrow its shape. “I felt ashamed of being different and ashamed of feeling that way,” she later commented. Instead, she embraced everything American.