Amy Chua
Appearances
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
Yeah. So first of all, I just love your institution. I think about it all the time. And I get it. And I feel that way. It's not so much the institution as, and this is going to sound so hokey, especially with these, I've just described students anonymously reporting and all this stuff. But there is a vast number of students there that are just incredibly interesting, much brilliant, fascinating.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
The J.D. Vances and all the people in this room, you know, and that I didn't want to give up. You know, I have formed really, really good relationships and they give me ideas for writing. So I think that is still there. Yeah.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
I think you're young and you're a builder, that's where you are. For me, I think, I don't think I'm actually, I shouldn't have really been a lawyer, you know? What should you have been? Well, I love psychology, but I think I should have been a talent scout. I think I'm really good at finding, and I'm excited by it. I love meeting people that just want to drop out. They want to drop out.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
They hate the institution. They came in confident, and now they feel like they hate themselves. So this, in a way, is support for you, right? What kind of institution is this that creates this? But I like to go at that level. I just feel like, no. You know, talking to you for 10 seconds, I can tell exactly what your comparative advantage is. So what do you look for as a talent scout?
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
Oh, I don't look for a thing. I can just see what each person's thing is.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
You know, that is so hard because I have some students here who reminded me. I mean, we can go through and rate each of you after this. Tian was his classmate, and apparently early on at a party that I threw, I said something like, you're going to be president of the United States, or you're going to be.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
And then at his book party, my husband and I, we definitely said that this is after he'll build the LG. It's hard to say what it was. We definitely clicked. So another thing, it's not that I look for it, but I mentor a lot of outsiders. And There are an infinite number of ways to be an outsider, right? It's not just being a person of color or immigrant. I mean, JD was definitely an outsider.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
What did you immediately notice? I remember him being in my office. I don't think he remembers this. We were talking about something, and he said, why are you so nice to me? And in that comment, I thought, wow, this guy has... That's so disarming. It's so authentic. It's kind of humble. So that comment, I found arresting. You know, it doesn't seem like very much, but I just thought...
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
I don't know, just no other students ever asked me that. Why are you so nice to me? You know, it made me, and then I later realized it's part of his background. A lot of people weren't nice to him. His mom and dad, I mean, he had no whatever. So, you know, I do like people with big dreams. I mean, you could call it ambition. I do like people who are, want to go for it, I think.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
What did he mean? The origin story, this is actually amazing, the overlap between Hillbilly Elegy and Tiger Mom. It's kind of incredible. So exams were January of 2011, the final exams. And Wall Street Journal's story breaks January 8, 2011. My book comes out January 11, 2011. I went from being a mild-mannered, well-liked nobody to suddenly being in the middle of this global firestorm.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
So like around January 13, when I was still teaching and had to monitor this final exam, I'm sitting by myself in Seattle. Again, I had bodyguards, death threats then. And I get an email from J.D. Vance. The first one's asking some boring contracts question of subcontractor A builds a house. So I answered it.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
And then about three hours later, he, I think after a beer or two, he emailed and he said, I have to confess, I should be studying, but I'm just so curious about this controversy. I went to the bookstore, Barnes and Nobles, and he had no money. So he read the whole thing there. And he said, I just don't get it. Why is this controversial? And he said, at least you tried.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
And then he said, he wrote, he's like, I feel a little bit bad that I might not have been totally forthcoming about my own background. It's actually a little bit more complicated. In that email, he also said, your girls are lucky. You remind me of Maymaw. And I'd never heard of Maymaw. So then he attaches this 10-page thing that is, here's my story.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
And literally, those first 10 pages are the beginning of Hillbilly Elegy, still. They're almost like the exact same words. I think it starts like, hi, my name is J.D. Vance. And so I read those. You read these in a Seattle hotel room. In a Seattle hotel. And I wrote right back. And I just said, you have to write your own book.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
And he started writing it for me that semester as a paper for the class. And we did it over three years.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
So actually, Vivek was a student at the same time, but he, I never taught him. Okay, okay. So I mentored him actually a little bit later, much later actually, but I did help him with this book. I did help him with this book. He- Woke Inc. ? I remember I had 10 minutes. I was going to a dinner. I said, I have 10 minutes.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
And he said, you know, I've been really successful in this, but I'm really worried about the direction of the country. I want to move into the public service. And to do that, I want to write a book. I'm thinking of a memoir. Because he said, because JD, like JD. And I just said, and I remember just, I am a very straight shooter. I just said,
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
You know, Vic, I don't know how to put this, but I just think a story about being the son of immigrants, you know, and a debate champion and, you know, tennis champ is just not going to be as heart-rending as going up, you know, the son of a heroin addict in Appalachia. And he is so fast learner, right? I mean, he, that. So he made up his whole new background story.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
No, Woking is something very different. Like he, you, I just told him. How did you respond when you said that? He's a great listener. He sent us a couple of drafts and I can be very tough. I'm very, very honest. Like I told JD in his draft, at one point I was like, this grand theory stuff is just not working. Just delete that part of 70 pages. Go back to the memoir part.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
And with Vivek, he had lots of ideas. And I just was saying that the memoir part wasn't going to be the subject of a movie.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
No, no, I just think that whole uproar descended into this false dichotomy, as these things often do, you know? I mean, to me, it was like, of course- What were the two sides? Well, it was like American cult, you know, prom kings, and I don't know who those TV figures were, but like sports jocks. Because you were not allowed to watch TV, but yes.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
But I mean, for me, it's so obvious that, of course, we should embrace and cultivate and be proud of our athletes and our prom queens, but also our spelling bee champs and our coders. I mean, this is a great thing about America, is that there is space for all kinds of forms of talent, or you can call it excellence or not. I mean, I actually think to be a prom queen, it probably requires a lot of
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
Makeup? No, I think at EQ and Peel, who knows? Certainly, there's a reason colleges recruit athletes. And so this is like the opposite of China, right? China is a whole country of tiger parents. And believe it or not, when I went to China to give these talks, you know what I said there? I was like, you guys need more sleepovers. That's honestly what I said.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
I was like, you are not understanding my message. My message is I am an American in this atmosphere. You guys, your kids need to socialize more. And so to me, it's American culture. I think that was the trap. To me, American culture is all of these things and also not all striving. I mean, there's this American sense of self-reliance is what I call it.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
For a lot of Americans, they just want independence. they just want to be able to take care of themselves, their family, have a good life, not necessarily, you know, and that's part of, you know, this is like the yeoman farmer, there's strands of this in American culture too. So here's where I think I agree with Vivek. I think, but I don't think, that's why I think the debate was framed wrong.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
I think we all, everybody, Nobody wants to raise kids who are entitled and so fragile that they can't take criticism and break down at the slightest bit of failure. So I have complaints. I mean, I wrote a whole book about it. I kind of know what he means. Like, I think sometimes a lot of my colleagues now are afraid to give...
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
honest feedback on students' papers or exams because, well, you know, maybe you'll, well, first of all, you might get sued or you might be attacked, you know, criticized for racism or misogyny or you might trigger a mental health breakdown. And so I can see this. It used to be, you know, people just kind of soft pedal it.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
And so I feel like America is the place where there's just room for so many different kinds of talent or even just people who want to live their own lives.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
I wrote that. That's part of the thesis of Day of Empire and, you know, societies that are able to bring in and attract the best and brightest. I mean, that's how my parents came as immigrants. Of course I'm for that. But I don't think that that's inconsistent. You know, I don't think it's inconsistent with harnessing other talents that are not, that don't always lead to engineering and coding. So
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
Again, like there's a nerd stereotype and there's a jock stereotype, but I teach a lot of students who were great athletes and there's a reason they ended up at Yale Law School, right? Because that teaches you a lot of grit and leadership.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
I think a lot of people who go on to do well in politics, you know, were good at sports because that develops certain other kinds of skills that are very positive. So I don't know. I felt like it was all very reductive on both sides.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
Yeah, I mean, I'm worried. Maybe it goes back to your first question. So I think things went too far. I wrote about this in Political Tribes. I said it's a bad idea when you're having, you know, you force white people to say, I check my privilege. I'm so sorry that I'm white and everything white is bad. I was like, just psychologically, that's not sustainable.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
Maybe for a couple, maybe some people like saying that. But eventually, somebody's going to come along and say, you know what? Actually, white people are good. And in fact, whatever And that, I understand that. That's what I was writing, and that's what I wrote in 2018. So, you know, it's a very dynamic situation. It is scary.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
It kind of went too far one way, and now in developing countries that I write about, it's scary. Sometimes there's payback too much in the other direction. I write about countries like Iraq. It's like the Sunnis, you know, suppressed terrorism.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
the Shia for such a long time, long time, and then finally we have democratic elections, and we're going to give the Shia majority, we're gonna empower them finally.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
And I wrote about that, I predicted the sad outcome, I got it right, I was like, you know what, that majority, that long oppressed resentful majority might use their new political power for payback and retaliation, so it remains very tricky.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
There was a time, it's hard to actually imagine now because we're in a very different phase, but you could just trash white people. That was like the one group that you wouldn't get in trouble. JD talked about this, too, that you could say anything about them, make fun of hillbillies, and also the one group that was not allowed to take pride in themselves, because that would be white supremacy.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
And I thought that was a dangerous situation. And it just makes so much sense that that's going to get reversed. So yeah, I think it's what I wrote was like we're seeing for the first time identity politics on all sides.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
Right. Well, first of all, I am not a political analyst. I mean, you have all these people here. This is not what I've been doing for the last couple of years. But you sense cultural shifts.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
So you don't need to be a political expert to... So I think a lot of stuff changes when it really affects, not just, okay, for working class people, it's like, can you afford groceries, et cetera. But for people not so, you know, maybe even more privileged people, it's when it affects your kids, right? when it affects your children, right?
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
So I think a lot of people, all my friends, they were always progressive. All my friends are progressive, you know, in favor of affirmative action. We're in favor of all these things. I mean, you know, that's what, when we were in school, everybody was. And then your kids start applying to college. Then the slots are not there. And they're all going, they see where the slots are going.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
And that affects people. People respond to their children. And this is not just Asian Americans. A lot of my very liberal friends in Westport and whatever, their kids are applying to college and they start to feel a sense of unfairness. And this is just one little piece of it. But I think, you know, when at a certain point,
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
so many things like, you know, just very performative things, like the vocabulary for what is okay to say, you know, keeps changing. And it's actually just so exclusive and so elitist in the name of kind of egalitarianism. You know, my youngest sister has Down syndrome and, you know, when we were little, you know, not good, I guess we said retarded, but then it was handicapped.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
And now I think it's something else. So those things, I think, start to seem meaningless. Right? Like, we just keep changing the words a little bit, and you're not helping anybody. So I just think that a lot of this election, I actually think it's going to be a great wake-up call.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
I think it's going to do great things for the Democratic Party and, you know, really rejuvenate it and just, it's not me. Everybody's saying it. Like, it's the things that matter to people on a daily basis. For some people, it's can you afford food or gas? For other people, it's like, I want my kid to get into college. I want them to, you know, get these spots.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
Thank you so much, Barry. It's the nicest thing anyone's ever said. Jed, take note. So what does it feel like to win? And do you feel like you've won? Not exactly. It's very surreal. I feel incredibly happy. And I'm so happy not to be in the middle of a firestorm. I still kind of wake up every day, check my email, expecting something horrible to explode. So it's fun to have you phrase it that way.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
From my experience, I think the campus has changed. You know, I was a little bit cynical. I was like, I think it's self-interest of the administrators, people wanting to become the next president of this school, the next dean, and after seeing what happened. But for example, many, many schools, and this is a good thing, they are pivoting back to the center on free speech.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
putting aside the complicated Hamas thing, but just free speech. So five years ago, you would walk into Yale Law School the first day, and you would get mental health training, check your privilege, DEI training, all these things. If you feel unsafe, do this. Here's the therapy dog. If you feel bad, here's the person you can anonymously
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
Now, you know, there's a whole section on you take care of your own problems, right? We were here to foster people working out their own problems. The DEI people got fired. Free speech, we're here to crossing divides. There's all these new programs about crossing divides. Now, they're not working very well yet. I mean, these crossing divides, you know, I don't think a single Trump
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
supporters ever invited so it's crossing divides and it's still but it's definitely from the leadership I actually think leadership makes a huge difference you know just even what you say to students the first day that they get in what is available makes a big difference I feel I actually feel that even my classroom I think other people feel this way too that it's a little bit different do you think you're ever going to get an apology from Yale no do you think that Nicholas and Erica Christakis are ever going to get an apology from Yale
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
No, nobody, no, no. That's not the kind of stuff they apologize for. They apologize to, you know, for Native American land confiscation. And it doesn't matter to you that you'll never get that closure? No, you know, I think bitterness and I found that I can't write, I can't do things, you know. I just like, just let it go, just let it go and try something else, do something fun.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
Sometimes I just get so, you know, so angry and so, feelings so unjust that I get kind of cringed crippled and then I can't teach well. So I just, I kind of block it all out.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
You know, for me, what worries me is not that some people have those positions. People can't have any positions. like to free speech. So this is actually, I remember about five years ago in a big criminal law class, a student stood up and said, this is not my class, but I heard about this, abolish prisons, defund the police. And tons of students came to me afterwards.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
It was like a 100-person class and said, this was so ridiculous. Oh my god, or whatever. And I was like, did anybody say anything? Did you say something? And they're like, no, nobody said anything. And I said, they're brave. They're vets. They served in Afghanistan. These are amazing people. Why did nobody say anything? And I was so struck. They were like, oh, it's not worth it.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
They were like, it's just not worth it, like, you know, to be canceled or whatever. And believe it or not, it has a lot to do with dating. Say more. Well, I mean, you know, you're young, you were starting off, you want to have parties, whatever, and you're going to come out and be the person that is whatever, you know. And so it's not that there are these extreme views.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
But I still feel like I have a little bit of a target on my back, honestly. OK, so let's talk about that. Because I'm scared to go back to Yale. After this event. After this? No, not with my students, but I just don't know what's going to happen. What do you fear might happen? You know, I love my students. I love teaching. But I try not to talk about politics.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
There have always been extreme views. So I am hoping that the free speech will correct that, right? But how does free speech correct an ideology that a person holds and then goes on to a— Well, first of all, I believe that in that room, in this particular case, I asked people, I was like, how many people do you think agree?
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
Given that there are 100 people in this room, one person said this and the other 99, nobody even pushed back a little bit or said, you know, I think people said, oh, probably there were like 10 people in that room that actually had that position.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
The other, so, you know, I think that if you can generate debate and have, and also maybe, I also think it's less cool now to have some of those positions.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
What's your view of human nature? There are always going to be people who are more leaders and are braver and take more initiative. I think that you can't expect everybody to always be like, I wouldn't expect that. You know, when I had all this stuff going on against me, I didn't feel like students should stand up and sacrifice themselves. I was like, I'm the professor. This is on me.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
I put myself in the public eye. I'm going to take care of myself and I will be their role model. You know, I can't. Did anyone surprise you in standing up for you publicly? Oh, my God. All the people in this room. But that was just like, I felt so grateful. They did not need to do that. I didn't have that expectation. If I had been a student, I don't know if I would have done that.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
So I am so grateful. First of all, I don't even know why I'm at Yale anyway. All of the stars had to be aligned for me to even get that job. So I feel actually very lucky. I feel very lucky, and like you, I have been stunned at some stuff that I can't believe. I just can't believe people did this and very hurt by it. But then I have been way more stunned by the positive.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
And, you know, here I am at the inauguration. And many, many people at Yale feel extremely strongly about that. And my colleagues, I haven't talked to them at all. And so I don't know. I don't know. I think it's the reason I don't feel vindicated, like, one, is because I teach in an atmosphere where I love my job. I really love teaching. And I love mentoring, especially. But it's not my community.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
I see things through political tribalism, right? Like, if you... feel you are facing an enemy. And again, I think for you it'd be like, imagine the Nazis, right? What would you do to help get rid of the Nazis? Not just rob a bank.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
I mean, like if you felt that it was an illegitimate force that's gonna do terrible things to people that you care about and you get it in your head and all of your circle feels that way, you only see these facts, then I kind of understand it. I'm sure half the country thought that was an enormous act of heroism.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
They were uniformly horrified. I think more of a loyalty thing. I don't think anybody left, right, everybody was horrified by that.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
I don't know. I still think it's a very tricky moment. Half the country is very angry and depressed and worried. You should see the emails that I get daily just from faculty. Tell us what they say. What kind of emails? Well, you know, how much longer are we going to have a democracy? What if Trump continues 10 more terms? I mean, and I think now the ratings are all down, right?
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
I remember during COVID, it's like I'd have to try to figure out for my parents what they should have. I would look after, you know, watch Fox News and MSNBC to try to figure out what's going on with, you know, just two different worlds, two different sets of facts completely. And I don't think we're out of that.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
I actually think these are getting a little bit better because of this election, actually. I think that there's going to be a lot of interesting movement on the Democratic side. Movement more to the center? Yes, and just getting rid of some of this, or just at least more experimental. You know, it's strange.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
The Democrats are always, they're supposed to be the more youthful and experimental and, you know, and there's just a lot of energy on the right right now with the rockets. I mean, there's just, I think there's a, so, and I think that will change very quickly.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
I don't know. I think he's a very idiosyncratic person. After him, I don't know. I mean, you know, I'm not sure what's going to happen after he's out of the picture. I mean, many years from now. Have you met him? No. Do you think you're going to meet him on Monday?
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
You know, he tweeted out the tiger. At some point, when he was asked what his favorite books were, I don't even read it. This is back in 2011 or whatever. He said, Tiger Mom book. He did? Yes. This was before he was even running for anything. The Tiger Mom book was his favorite book? He said, yeah, something. Or, which books are you reading? Yeah. I'm just like, what? No.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
It's not my community. I could not talk like this there with almost anybody. Maybe... eight people of my colleagues.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
It's not that I can't be free. I definitely teach. I think things are getting better. I don't want to sound, you know, I have even classes. I have a lot of students in this room tonight. And classes, the atmosphere is way better than it was every year. It's getting a lot better. You know, I never used to have to do this before.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
When JD was my student, we would have these feisty debates, left versus right. And it was kind of fun to have these big debates. And then afterwards, people would go out for a beer. Starting about eight years ago, that just all stopped. You know, people were afraid to say things. And then I devised a new technique to continue the debates.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
I said, you can write me your genuine views, and I will read them anonymously. And it's like a second best solution, but it actually led to, it was a good debate. Not a debate, but I would read these things. You would see people nod, and some people would talk. But this past semester, you know, I assigned a provocative piece on critical race theory.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
And in the past, if you're a Caucasian person, you have something critical to say, and you would never say it. But people wrote me this in their reaction papers, and I said, I'd love to read this. This is such a good point. Should I read it anonymously? And they were like, no, I'd love to say it. And that's been a real change, just really literally in the last six months.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
People are more—I just think things are getting better. So— Among the students. There's a big cultural debate happening right now. Wokeness has receded. Wokeness is over. You feel, I don't know if it's over, but you definitely feel that it's a little bit passe and more and more people are braver and eye roll about a lot of things. You know, it's not all just negative.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
Very, you know, part of it is like, yeah, virtue signaling is out. Definitely some of this wokeness is out. But honestly, there are just, I have many, many students who are just very sincere, fantastic progressives. Yeah. You know, they may have been privileged, may not, but they want to do good things for the world. And I think that for a lot of them, it's been a realization.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
You saw the thing about the naming, like, you know, standing, so this is the land of the Native American. There was a piece saying, you know, this is not helping, you know, or I've had a lot of students start to think that this cultural appropriation thing, making a big stink that somebody's wearing a sombrero, that this is not meaningful.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
So I think there's a substantive basis, too, that's not just all these stupid people. It's like, you know, this is... You know, especially with the election. Like, I think for a lot of Democrats, it's very eye-opening, oh my God, to lose the working class and a lot of minorities. I think a lot of people are just revisiting a lot of ideas.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
Well, you know, it started even before the Tiger Mom book, actually. The first book I published called World on Fire, How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability. What a subtitle. I know. It was 2011, and I got really lucky. It was lucky in a sad way. It was a foreign policy book, and it happened right after 9-11. Oh, it was published, right?
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
actually just right around then. And suddenly, everybody was interested in this little topic I was writing about. But right then, I was told by my publisher, you're nobody. So the way that we try to get attention is you write an op-ed about a hot button issue, and then we try to get some attention. So I wrote about the Venezuelan strikes that were going on at this time.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
Hugo Chavez was in the news. And I wrote what I thought was a pretty good piece Basically pointing out that when we have strikes in the United States, we assume it's working class, blue collar. But what I was saying is there, the strikes were by actually oil elite. It was a very different dynamic. But I got sucked into this big media. media, they came after me.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
Because I was saying, look, Chavez, as horrible as he is, he was democratically elected. And it's been what I've been writing for a long time saying, in the United States, we tend to think of democracy as a panacea. All we need is elections.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
And early on, back in, this is 2000, I was saying, you know, in a lot of countries that are not like the United States, democracy or democratic elections can lead to ethno-nationalism, populism, a lot of what we're seeing in the United States. I mean, Hamas was elected in Gaza. Yes. And it also, you know, things in the United States.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
But they, believe it or not, it was controversial at that time to say that Hugo Chavez was democratically elected. They wanted to say that it was a coup. There's no way this could be democracy. And that was my first firestorm. That was my first firestorm in 2001. So to answer your question, I want to psychoanalyze myself. Like, I don't try to create a firestorm.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
It just seems like everything I do leads to one. So I got over that one and then the tiger mom was the next thing. So I think I'm just really used to thinking, wow, everything's great now. This is so fun. And then checking my email and just a nightmare, a nightmare, you know, and then seeing the headlines.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
You know, I'm actually oversensitive. I get really, really depressed. I think I'm a very confusing person. Some people like to be bad boys and they get out there, you know. When I get attacked, I go through a cycle, right? First, I feel incredibly depressed. I just want to jump out a window. Why did I do this again? Crawl and, you know. And then about two days later, I start to get mad.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
Like, who are these people? that are making me feel so bad. They're idiots. You know, they're losers. I kind of come through that way. You know, I think it's more... I relate to this. Yes. I think it's more that I'm... Like, I did not think I was going to create a firestorm with Tiger Mom. And my husband said that it was going to be controversial.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
You didn't think when you said that sleepovers are not allowed that that would be controversial? Controversial. You know, so by the way, I have tons of students. Either you get the book or you don't. So I have tons of students who are immigrants kids. They're like, oh, my God, I was laughing so hard. They just got it. They just got it, you know, and other people who read it very literally.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
So to me, it was clearly a little bit tongue in cheek. You know, Barry, it was a memoir about my daughter rebelling, you know, and at the end how I kind of pulled back. So my dad kept saying, how can this be controversial? It's just your story. How could it be controversial? Part of it was the Wall Street Journal slapping on the headline, Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior. But no, you're right.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
I mean, it was... Yes. Oh, no. Historically, it was the most read. It was only recently... What was it unseated by? Do you know? Something not that great.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
No, but for me, that's not, I don't think I act on, it wasn't a matter of principle or, it's just, well, maybe it is principle. Well, it's a principle of loyalty at the very least. I don't turn on my friends. Yeah, I just don't turn on my friends. It would never occur to me. I would never turn on any member of my family. And yeah, it never even occurred to me. I don't know.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
I didn't feel very brave at the time. I just said no and closed the door.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
I believe it or not, I can sympathize with the other side. I think people were so horrified. You know, most of my colleagues feel very strongly about choice. And they just felt like we can't let this person get on the Supreme Court. So it was anything. You're helping a heroic cause. You know, like if you imagined it was really a Hitler, right, then anything to prevent this.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
And I think what he was saying is he wasn't considering that guy's feelings. He had mental health problems afterwards. It was really brutal on him. I think that was still more to what happened to me. It was just like anything to get me to turn. And it was really bad for my family. It lasted for five years.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
Yes. Oh, COVID just added a whole other layer of toxicity to it. I mean, first of all, our students weren't able to interact with each other. So it's by Zoom. And then we really got to our low point was around then. Again, I have students in this room. It was like Stassi. There was anonymous reporting, you know, for COVID. About you? No, for once, it's not about me.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
But for example, just for students, COVID mask violations. It was, if you see somebody that has a COVID vas myelitis, you can report it anonymously to these two DEI people. And get this. This sounds fun. But get this. The maximum penalty, you know, those are the judges. There's nothing else, right, was expulsion.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
So, and then what I saw is it ended up being mean girls, like somebody was mad at somebody. It just got completely out of control, no due process.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
Why? Well, it was actually, you know what? Maybe you're right. I think I am kind of stubborn and perverse.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
Yes. What happened here was I, first of all, I was advised not to take any interviews. They were like, these are all going to be hit jobs. So I was like, no, I'm going to do it. I knew they would still be hit jobs, but I thought they could be slightly better hit jobs. And it was actually Irin Carmen of New York Magazine. And that was a rough interview.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
Like I knew this is the one, there's a picture of me with the two dogs. But at the very end, she just said, look, I just don't get it. If everybody hates you so much, why don't you just leave Yale? And that had the opposite effect on me. You know, I just like this thing went off in my head and I was like, never. And I'm not going to be pushed out.
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Takes Washington
And I think I said, yeah, I was like at that point, I was like, you're going to have to drag me out of here dead. So, yeah, I do. I do. There's a mechanism.