A
Conversation with Phoebe Eng
What inspired you to write this book?
Ever since I was young, I have been looking for a book by an
Asian American woman that told real life stories from a powerful
voice. And I also always wanted a book that I could hand to anyone
who ever asked me difficult questions about how women like me deal
with race and stereotypes and family pressures, because it was just
not possible to fully explain these things in a few minutes. I could
never find either of these books, so I wrote one myself. I hope Warrior
Lessons does for Asian American women what Gloria Steinem’s
and Betty Friedan’s writing did for women in general – giving
them a voice of their own grounding and potential.
What is the significance of the title, Warrior Lessons?
It’s my tribute to my favorite book when I was young -- Maxine
Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior. It was about a little
gutsy Chinese American girl struggling to make sense of her place in
the world. As a backdrop to this story, Kingston used the tale of Fa
Mu Lan, China’s greatest woman hero who took her father’s place
in battle and saved China. Later, Kingston admitted that she left
out an important part of the story of Fa Mu Lan, about how Fa Mu Lan
returned home after her battles and was able to resume her life,
without being brutalized by the war. Warrior Lessons puts
this theme in real life, and teaches women that real power is the
ability to always live positively and connected to the good things
in life, even if we do have to fight sometimes.
The book is composed of twelve lessons. What do these lessons
symbolize?
In order to be powerful in the world, we have to feel that that
way within ourselves first. So the twelve steps trace the blossoming
of an empowered woman – starting by her looking within and then
gradually exercising that power to the outside world.
Family is the most important to core of so many of our choices,
so I start by looking at family expectations, which are often
immigrant expectations as well. We’re so trapped by our parents
American Dreams of economic success at any cost, which can sometimes
lead us to make choices in life that we wouldn’t otherwise have
made ourselves. I use my own story of becoming a lawyer because it
had always been something my parents wanted for me (they told me I
had a big mouth so I might as well use it). When I realized that law
was not my passion, it hurt them to see me sacrificing that great
salary and all that prestige. Especially because I wanted instead to
publish a small Asian American magazine that had no money in its
bank accounts at the time. By using my story, I offer ways for
parents and their children to stand back and review their behavior.
I ask parents whether they’ve given too much of their lives, and
pinned too much responsibility on their children for living out
their own aspirations. I ask their children not to use filial piety
as an excuse for not attempting to find out what they truly want for
themselves.
I do the same thing with the eleven other warrior lessons - I
look at why it can be so hard for us to express rage, even when it
might prove constructive. I ask women to question why they love who
they love. I impart my own brand of survival skills -- how to fight
constructively, how to take risks. And finally, I talk about the
ultimate practice of power -- how and why we have to learn to lead
others from the heart and with love.
Why do you think it is more difficult for Asian women to assert
their independence?
Often family expectations about the role of girls keeps them in
check. It’s always easier to obey the rules, and in many Asian
families, those rules that tell us not to stick out and speak out of
turn can be very strict.
Independent, outspoken women with Asian faces is a bit of an
oddity in America, even if we do live in a multicultural world. It
is hard for an Asian American woman to get heard for what she is
saying. For instance, when I get up to deliver a lecture, I sense
that my audiences are a little shocked to see an Asian woman who can
speak English. Sometimes they need a good few minutes to really hear
what I am saying. Many Americans have very little experience with
the image of a powerful Asian woman. Many still envision silent
geisha girls who looks pretty but says nothing. Or the Suzy Wong and
Madame Butterfly images that tell us we’re valuable because we
give pleasure to others. These may be good stories, but they have
nothing to do with real life Asian American women, and that can be a
problem for the modern Asian woman who wants to assert her voice and
her independence.
You call the book a compass for Asian American women to follow.
Why do you think there are so few resources for Asian women?
It’s only now that Asian American women are reaching a point of
critical mass. America has changed drastically over the last ten
years so that Asians are now a good 10% of the total U.S.
population, and that number is rising fast. There is also a whole
generation of adopted Asian girls and their parents who have asked
for guidance. And the friends, lovers, and in-laws of Asian American
women who want to know more but don’t know how to ask.
A new generation of American-born daughters is just now coming of
age, and they want stories that validate their experiences. Their
ideas are based in America, not the old world. They value
independent thought more than obeying the rules. Their views are
more varied than the immigrant views of "make money, marry
well, succeed the conventional way." I knew that times were
changing when Amy Tan became a national bestseller, followed by
several young Asian American fiction writers over the past few
years.
Non-fiction works like Warrior Lessons are totally new
territory for the Asian American voice because to tell true stories
you have to risk face and shame. We all know that’s something to
avoid, especially when we come from Asian families. So real- life
revelation is a new and risky technique. But it is also one that
marks that evolution of a generation. It shows that we are not
afraid to use the word "I."
What different challenges do Asian American women face as opposed
to "white" or African-American women?
The heavy weight of family bears down hard on most Asian American
women, whether they are young and trying to pull away from family to
find themselves, whether they’re new mothers trying to bring up
their children, whether they’re choosing the right partners, jobs,
or lifestyle, whether they’re children are respecting their
wishes. Many of us come from extremely male-oriented families where
sons have been given most of the attention, and we have to deal with
the anger of not being viewed as equally valuable. Trying to put
family patterns into perspective is one of the important themes in Warrior
Lessons.
We face other challenges as well. Stereotypes about our
submissiveness cause a glass ceiling effect in the workplace, making
it hard for us to proceed to managerial ranks. The assumption is
that we are bad managers, but we make great good worker bees. To
fully explore this, we have to examine where those stereotypes come
from. Where eastern values tell us to be humble and
self-deprecating, success in America requires that we be aggressive
and self-congratulatory. How an Asian woman balances her cultural
legacy against a western formula for success has got to be one of
her greatest challenges.
What do you hope all women will gain from reading your book?
I hope that my themes about how to stick up for ourselves, how to
create communities, how to extricate ourselves from the people and
patterns that hold us back, and how to understand why we love the
people that we do, will ring true for all women who read it,
regardless of race. Asian women may experience these themes in
superficially different ways, but all women can gain insight from
how she negotiates her way to a more powerful self. While the
stories may be different, the solutions are universal.
In the book you state "…as an Asian American, I am seen as
a wild card, a swing vote, a middleman." Explain this
statement.
In the last chapter I talk about my life on the road as a
lecturer who talks about race and who we can really begin to thrive
in a diverse America. But as an Asian American, sometimes my
audiences presume that I have no business talking about race, that
only blacks and whites can do that because there are only two sides
to the coin. No one knows what an Asian American woman will say
about race, because her views aren’t scripted yet. There are no
assumptions about what she might say, and that makes her a dangerous
but very integral player at the table.
This is the dilemma of the middleman. Either no one cares what
you have to say, or else your views are only important to the extent
that they give an advantage to one side or the other. But from the
voice of the middleman can come truths as well. The middleman can
speak about nuance, reminding us that real life isn’t about black
and white. Life is so much more complex than that.
Race is a complex issue that has more than just two sides to it.
Here are some facts that show this complexity. In exit polls on both
coasts, Asian American voted overwhelmingly in support of
affirmative action, even though most news reports depict us as a
group that is opposed to it. While they may be top performers at
school, they are also overwhelmingly at the bottom of the rung in
SAT scores. They may be stereotyped as well off, but even more of
them fall well below the poverty line. If we really want to have a
meaningful discussion, we have to begin to analyze race, gender,
class all at once, and Asian American women who sit at the
intersection of all of these, can be good contributors to that
discussion.
In your opinion, are Asian American men perceived differently
than Asian American women?
Most certainly yes. At least the American viewing public has
grown more accustomed to Asian American women, through years of
watching Connie Chung and a whole generation of Asian woman
newscasters. Asian American men unfortunately have not had that
luxury. They are still seen as foreign, strange beings and their
perception is still firmly ruled by stereotypes. In the past they
were depicted as effeminate, weak, or geeky. If he gains success in
politics or economically, he is viewed with suspicion -- an Asian
takeover master. And even though Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee have been
the most powerful figures that little Asian American boys could
emulate, at the end of the day, they are still karate kicking
cartoon characters. Unless an Asian man fits into one of these
categories, he really doesn’t register. There’s very little
attention given to his humanity. But through writings from David
Mura, Shawn Wong, that is changing. In Warrior Lessons, I
explore our relationships with Asian American men to find what it is
that makes us worthy of each other’s love and respect. I want to
make Asian American men attractive and sexy in a way that they have
never been portrayed.
There are some revelatory anecdotes in the book. How did your
traditional Chinese family react?
Throughout the book I tell family secrets that I was never
supposed to tell about family feuds and shameful acts that were
supposed to have been locked away forever. I also write about my mom
and dad and how they chose to survive emotionally in America. I was
very concerned when I handed them the manuscript, but they accepted
every last word. My mom said to me, "You write like that Anna
Quindlen woman." I don’t think she realized what a compliment
she gave me. As a good Chinese mom, she doesn’t give straight out
compliments.
Families grow to accept us when their love for us is pure. I tell
my readers never to let family expectations, or our assumptions of
them, stop us from doing or saying what we feel will help us and our
families to grow. Don’t let fear stop you or silence you if your
words or actions are meant to heal.
Who/what are some of your inspirations?
Unlike many of the women I interviewed, I had many Asian American
women mentors because I made sure that when I met one, I never let
her go. Many of them are activists, like the Sharon Hom, a law
professor who convinced me to go to law school and sent me an
application to make sure I’d try. And Peggy Saika in Oakland, who
has done amazing things as a community organizer.
Generally, I find inspiration from social movement thinkers -
Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Gloria Steinem, all of them were
innovators who defied convention for the sake of creating more
equality in the world.
What’s next for Phoebe Eng?
I’m working on a second book –this time about love, the most
universal theme of all. I want to explore how love survives amid
great pain and ambiguity. A lot of this will be informed by a
serious accident that my husband had last year as I finished up the
manuscript for Warrior Lessons. While he was on a shoot in
Africa for a travel magazine, he fell into the crater of a volcano
and broke most of the bones in his body, including his back. My next
book will trace his process of healing and our healing as a couple.
A magazine and multimedia venture for and about Asian women is
also being explored. After reading Warrior Lessons, people
have told me that the time is right to develop an Asian American
woman’s voice. I never thought I’d hear such sweet words. It
makes me feel that all this work has been worth it.
Visit Phoebe Eng at her website, http://www.warriorlessons.com.
