Mother-Daughter Relationships in Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan In Joy Luck Club, author Amy Tan, focuses on mother-daughter relationships. Examines the lives of four women who emigrated from China and the lives of four of their American-born daughters. The mothers: Suyuan Woo, An-Mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-Ying St. Clair had all experienced life-altering horror before coming to America, and it has forever tainted their perspective on how they want it to be. their children grew up. The four daughters: Waverly, Lena, Rose and Jing-Mei are all American. Although they absorb some traditions of Chinese culture, they are raised in America and American ideals and values. This inability to communicate and the clash of cultures create rifts between mothers and daughters. The most difficult communication problem emerges between Suyuan and Jing-Mei. Suyuan is a very strong woman who lost everything she had in China: "her mother and father, her family home, her first husband and two daughters, twins" (141). Yet it finds the strength to carry on and still retains its traditional values. He remarries and has Jing-Mei and creates a new life in America. It is she who brings together three other women to form the Joy Luck Club. The rift is greatest between Suyuan and June. Suyuan tries to force her daughter to be everything she could ever be. He sees the opportunities America has to offer and doesn't want to see his daughter throw those opportunities away. She wants the best for her daughter and doesn't want Jing-Mei to ever let go of something she wants because it's too hard to get. “America is where all of my mother's hopes lay… There were so many ways to… middle of paper… fight against America” (31). The journey she takes finally helps her understand where her mother came from, why she was the way she was, and she begins to forgive her for all the misunderstandings they had. Rifts between mothers and daughters continue to separate them, but as daughters grow up, they become more tolerant of their mothers. They learn that they don't know everything about their mothers, and the courage their mothers have shown throughout their lives is astonishing. As they grow up they discover that they don't know everything and that their mothers can still teach them a lot about life. They grow closer to their mothers and learn to be proud of their heritage and culture. They gain the wisdom of understanding, and that is the best feeling you can have in the world. WORKS CITED Tan, Amy. The Joy and Luck Club. New York: Random House, 1989.