Mother and Daughter Struggle in The Joy Luck ClubThe Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan, illustrates what life is like for many foreigners in America who are trying to give their they better child the opportunities that they most likely did not have as children. The story touches on a very common struggle in America, that between mother and daughter, where the daughter never feels good enough for her mother. The struggle Jing-Mei has with herself is also present. Jing-Mei's mother plans to make her daughter some sort of prodigy. He constantly pushes Jing-Mei to do better and be better in whatever activity she takes part in, but why does she do it? There are a couple of reasons, one of which is because he wants Jing-Mei to have opportunities that she herself didn't have growing up in China. She came to America after losing almost everything, hoping to have a better life for herself and her family. For many immigrants, America is the land of opportunity. You can do anything or be anything if you put your mind to it. Well, Jing-Mei certainly didn't focus on anything, so her mother took it upon herself to get her started on something. First, there was Shirley Temple. Jing-Mei's mother thought she could be the next Shirley Temple. Together, they "...watched old Shirley movies on TV as if they were workout movies." (Tan 491). Jing-Mei, with the help of her mother, was really trying to emulate this little star, but she wasn't good enough yet. Jing-Mei had to be more than a prodigy. She needed to be better than any other American child because her mother had given her all these opportunities. It could have been a...half of paper...Studies. 19.3 (Fall 1993): 597-614.Ling, Amy. Critical extract. Asian-American women writers. Ed. Harold Bloom. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 1997. 85-7.Schell, Orville. Critical extract. Asian-American women writers. Ed. Harold Bloom. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 1997. 82-3.Shear, Walter. “Generational Differences and Diaspora in The Joy Luck Club.” Women writers. 34.3 (Tan Spring 1993): 193. Expanded Academic Index. Souris, Stephen. "'Only Two Kinds of Daughters:' "Inter-Monologue Dialogic in The Joy Luck Club." Melus 19.2 (Summer 1994): 99-123. Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club. New York: Ivy Books, 1989. Willard , Nancy. Asian-American Women Writers Ed. Harold Bloom: Chelsea House, 1997. 84-5.Xu, Ben 1994): 3-17.