Warning, this review turned into a personal essay, whoops.

Loved it, but the (main) title is incredibly misleading in my opinion- from the bits and pieces I heard on the web, I thought perhaps this was a rebuttal to the 'Tiger parenting' meme floating around. Instead, Keltner gives us essays that collectively make up a memoir, a collage between parts of her childhood and raising her own daughter, and Chinese American identity. I think some of the other reviewers were expecting the former and were therefore disappointed, but to me it was like listening to the older sister I never had, who's been through similar head space. The subtitle's a better guide for what the book actually is.

Disclaimer in case family finds it (because they check on my web presence periodically): I know, Mom isn't a 'Tiger mother'. She's of Keltner's generation, kind of (when I say that, I mean first gen born on American soil, though Mom is definitely a Baby Boomer while I think Keltner falls into the early part of X)... but as far as I know never bickered with her own mom or anything. I don't know. It's largely a black box to me because Pau-Pau and Gong Gong passed away before I was born, and what I do know is that mom followed the quintessential Chinese path of looking after your parents, never leaving home because the other siblings got married. Many times there's things I wonder and want to ask (and maybe will eventually), but likely will miss some answers because they're of a sensitive nature and unlike Keltner's mom, mine expresses feelings instead of indifference and I'd feel super guilty about digging up potential old wounds. (If you do get around to reading this, I love you, Mom, even if we butt heads on a lot of things. I was going to write something more pithy and accurate in this parenthetical, but it'd probably be more exposed than I want to be in a Google cache [ask alex to explain that])

I wrote a paragraph and deleted it because I'm still trying to put my finger on what makes this different from the other books, both fictional and non, about the Chinese American experience. It has what I think we can consider tropes by now found in the genre- San Francisco, Catholic schooling, having Chinese school on weekends instead of girl scouts, music lessons and comparisons to everyone else's child, etc. I can relate to nearly none of these things because I'm a 4th gen who grew up in a predominantly white town where the other Asian people were a) immigrants via the nearby National Lab or service industry, b) adopted by white families, or c) Japanese Americans who I'm going to assume might be a holdover from the internment period but I could be entirely wrong on that because there really weren't too terribly many Asians around when I grew up (though there's enough for a JACL in town). My parents encouraged my brother and I to excel, but they weren't the insane High Expectations Parent that lives on in image macros and memes. Because there aren't many other Chinese American families there, I haven't been pushed at all to date so-and-so's son or nephew or whomever, and likewise there's no push for grandkids (quite the opposite but that's a story for another time).

It wasn't the parenting bits that resonated with me, no. But relevant parts of being a Chinese American (yes, I know there's some who live in this post racial society who wonder at my adjective, but c'mon. It would be disingenuous to assume being American instantly sheds cultural baggage. It's probably the most American thing, actually, cultural baggage*) do. In one essay, Keltner reflects on [a:Iris Chang|17765|Iris Chang|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1209401344p2/17765.jpg]'s suicide because there were so many similarities in their lives (female Chinese American writers about the same age with a young child), writing

I'm not sure how to feel about Iris Chang, her accomplishments, and her death. There's the sickness I feel over her tragic end, and then there are the details we had in common that add a macabre quality. Mostly, though, what pained me and troubles me still about her death is that she was someone I looked up to, who gave me hope and a little bit more courage. I had considered her a better, more respectable version of myself. When someone whom you've admired can't stand the heat in the kitchen and decides to off herself, what are you supposed to do?
[...]
Sometimes when I want to give up everything and not get out of bed, I think of Iris. Not because she would've definitely gotten out of bed, but because I can. I have the chance to write about all these things that happen to me, and somewhere there's someone whom I may never meet and she is reading my books. Maybe my words can make her feel better, or inspire her to be the next writer who makes a difference. We all keep passing the baton to the next person who can tell the truth, and that humble continuity is what we'll need to break apart the abstract wall of Chinese silence that keeps us separate, each alone within ourselves.

Or in another essay towards the end of the book (that spawned my thoughts re: family mentioned in the disclaimer above), visiting relatives in the house her father grew up in, thinking about how pursuing the life she wants is a privilege, built on the backs of family experience. "We Chinese Americans are walking around in our modern lives, but who and what are we carrying around, invisibly, inside us?" I also want to quote the last page but I'd rather encourage people (especially other CAs) to read it for themselves. I also want to write more words on why I thought this was so great, but I realize at this point of the week I'm running on low sleep and have gotten a bit rambly and less articulate, so apologies.

*I realized towards the end of writing this that I'm kind of hypocritical here- gotten peeved at people calling me "Chinese" before insisting that I'm pretty much straight up just American instead of defining me by my race. Then again, Chinese American here is more of a cultural distinction rather than a (false) nationality assumption, so idk. ( )

1) Don't write a memoir if you're still angry with you family about the way they raised you, unless you could remain neutral.

2) Also, don't write a memoir if you feel inferior to be Asian. ( )

“Tiger Babies” by Kim Wong Keltner is obviously marketed towards those who read and enjoyed “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” by Amy Chua. However, the two books actually seem to have very different audiences. In contrast to Chua's much-publicised book, Wong Keltner, the daughter of a 'tiger mother', has written an interesting memoir about parenthood and what it means to be Chinese-American in California today. I was hoping her book would delve into the intricacies of being raised in a tiger mom household, but she really focuses on herself (and she has NO intention of becoming a tiger mother at all!). Nonetheless, it was an interesting, quick read... ( )

I received a copy of this book through LT’s ER program. The day the book arrived, I snatched it up and started reading—I found [Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother] fascinating when I read it, so this “rebuttal” (or more aptly, response) to that book sounded just as exciting.

Unfortunately, it didn’t quite deliver. I found that the book didn’t really address Amy Chua’s book so much as use the title to tie the books together in order to entice people like me to pick it up. Keltner’s book is more like a memoir, and an unfocused, meandering one at that.

There were many times when I found myself asking, “what’s the point of all this? where are you going with this story / illustration / tangent?” and then didn’t find that the pages following actually resolved any of my questions.

I did finish the book, but I had to force myself to do so. Should the author have stayed on topic and delivered what the title and description promised, I think it would have been a much more interesting and engaging read. Sorry, Keltner! Just wasn’t for me. ( )

I know some foreign-born adults who are now very Americanized whose parents are still very much a part of their roots. While this book covers the problems that can occur when this happens, the theme becomes somewhat tiresome. What's funny is that most immigrant families tend to have this point of view, as education is a way to succeed in other countries that do not have as many choices as the United States. I have seen much disagreement between Asian, Indian, and African families over how much children should study and learn outside of school, which also seems to ring true in this book. It was overall a good general introduction to the issues in some of these families. ( )