Comparing The Joy Luck Club and The Woman Warrior Amy Tan's hugely popular novel, The Joy Luck Club, explores the problems faced by Chinese immigrants in grades generation, especially mothers and daughters. Although Tan's book is a work of fiction, many of the struggles it describes are echoed in Maxine Hong Kingston's autobiographical work, The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts. The mother-daughter pairs in both of these books find themselves separated along both cultural and generational lines. Among the barriers to overcome are those of language, beliefs and customs, and geographical loyalty. The gulf between these women is sadly acknowledged by Ying-ying St. Clair when she says of her daughter Lena, “'All my life I have watched her as if from another shore'” (Tan 242). Ultimately, it is up to the daughters, the divided second generation, to bridge the gap of understanding and reconnect with their old-world mothers. The Joy Luck Club begins with a fable that immediately highlights the importance of language in immigrant history. It is the story of a hopeful young woman who travels from China to America to start a new life. He brings with him a swan, which he hopes to give to his American daughter one day. The language barrier is laid bare when the woman's wishes for her future child are defined by the idea that this daughter of an immigrant will never know the hardships endured by her mother because she will be born in America and "speak only perfect American English." (Tan 18). For the young woman, however, things don't go exactly as planned. His adorable swan is confiscated by customs officials, and his precious adult daughter makes… middle of paper… Fatherhood Strategies in Asian America. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000. Huntley, E. D. Amy Tan: A Critical Companion. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998. Kingston, Maxine Hong. The warrior woman: memories of a childhood among ghosts. New York: Vintage International, 1976. Soderstrom, Christina. "Maxine Hong Kingston." Voices from the Blank Spaces: Women Writers of Color. University of Minnesota. April 11, 2001 .So much, Amy. The Joy and Luck Club. New York: Vintage, 1991. Tavernise, Peter. “Fasting the Heart: Maternal Tradition and Sacred Systems in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club.” The Joy Luck Club page. 1994 Home page. April 11, 2001 .Verschuur-Basse, Denyse. Chinese women speak. Trans. Elizabeth Rauch-Nolan. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996