Amy Tan Research Paper

Amy Tan was born in Oakland, California on February 19, 1952. In the article “Amy Tan” it reads, “Her parents chose the Chinese name En-Mai, meaning Blessing of America… [Though] the blessing seemed inadequate” (“Amy Tan”). Her father, John Tan, immigrated to the United States in 1947 and took work as an engineer and Baptist Minister. Her mother, Daisy Tan, immigrated to the United States in 1949, leaving behind three daughters from a previous marriage. Tan had an older brother named Peter, and a younger named John. Peter died of brain cancer in 1967, and their father followed months after from the same disease. When Tan was fifteen, her mother moved them to Montreux, Switzerland. Tan did anything but thrive in Montreux, in high school she fell in with drug-dealing hippies and was arrested at age …show more content…
She earned her degree in 1973, and the following year she married DiMattei. The tragedies of Tan’s life were not over yet, in 1976 her best friend was murdered. This led to Tan dropping out of the doctoral program she had begun at the University of California. Tan used her degrees in English and Linguistics to work as a language-development specialist for disabled children. She also edited a medical journal for three years and became a technical writer specializing in corporate business proposals. Her work as a technical writer overtook her life and she often spent ninety hours a week at her job. To cure herself of being a workaholic, Tan joined the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. Through this, she began writing fiction. Her first novel, a collection of stories titled The Joy Luck Club made The New York Times best-seller list in 1989 and won several awards. Tan continued her writing career and published a new novel every few years. Her latest novel was titled Saving Fish from Drowning and was published in 2006. Tan lives with her husband in San Francisco and New York