The coined phrase “tiger mom”, before the 20th century, was almost nonexistent because of the poor conditions in which most Americans believed Chinese lived in. They saw Chinatowns as “depraved colonies of prostitutes, gamblers and opium addicts bereft of decency”.
During World War II, some Americans believed that China would see the United States and their Chinese Exclusion Act negatively and wish to no longer support us against Japan and the rest of the Axis powers. These people ended up being able to project the thought that most Americans think that Chinese immigrants were “‘law-abiding, peace-loving, courteous people living quietly among us’” instead of what they thought they were. In 1943, the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed by Congress.
In the 1950s, this idea of Chinese children being obedient and respectful to their elders was reused after they saw a “national juvenile delinquent crisis”. Another stereotype they put onto the Chinese children was that they had a “high moral sense”. “U.S. Rep. Arthur Klein of New York praised his Manhattan Chinatown constituents for their ‘respect for parents and teachers,’ ‘stable and loving home life’ and thirst for education”, Wu says. …show more content…
The first factor was that the Chinese apparently focuses on and values their nuclear family. This Confucianism way of thinking was almost on par with contemporary conservatives of the time. The other factor was that they were anti-communism. This became important when looking at the differences between the Chinese families in America and the Chinese families back in China under the communist Mao Tse-tung’s government. The media put an emphasis on how the Chinese living in America were not communist because they lived in America and not China. This seemed to solidify a belief of the life of an American to be