Part 1 of Essay
"Hey, Ben, are you Japanese or Chinese?" I asked. His reply, as it seems to be for a lot of minority groups, was, "Neither, I'm Chinese-American." So, besides his American accent and a hyphenated ending on his answer to the SAT questionnaire about his ethnic background, what's the difference? In Amy Tan's captivating nove ....

Part 2 of Essay
.... the best stories. And each week, we could hope to be lucky. That hope was our only joy." (p. 12) Really, this was their only joy. The mothers grew up during perilous times in China. They all were taught "to desire nothing, to swallow other people's misery, to eat [their] own bitterness." (p. 241) Though not many of them grew up terribly poor, they all had a certain respect for their elders, and for life itself. These Chinese mothers were all taught to be honorable, to the point of sacrificing their own lives t ....