And then it occurs to me. They are frightened. In me, they see their own daughters, just as ignorant, just as unmindful of all the truths and hopes they have brought to America. They see daughters who grow impatient when their mothers talk in Chinese, who think they are stupid when they explain things in fractured English. They see that joy and luck do not mean the same to their daughters, that to these closed American-born minds "joy luck" is not a word, it does not exist. They see daughters who will bear grandchildren born without any connecting hope passed from generation to generation. Amy Tan
About This Quote

In this quote, Maya Angelou talks about the fear that drives the Chinese immigrants to the US. The people that immigrated to America from China were brought there by hope and dreams, however, once they arrived their hopes and dreams were quickly crushed because of a lack of knowledge and a failure to understand. In this case, the Chinese immigrants feared that their children would grow up to be ignorant and not have a connection between them and their ancestors. The fear here is that the children would grow up without any connection between them and their ancestors.

Source: The Joy Luck Club

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