Welcome to the world of the modern Asian American woman, where the willingness to cause "trouble" -- to stir the waters, think deeply, and go against what is expected -- is the first of many steps to self-discovery and power. Now, Phoebe Eng shatters stereotypes and offers a bold new vision for American-raised daughters like herself. Social activist, lawyer, and spearheading former publisher of A. Magazine for Asian Americans, Eng begins her journey with stories of her own life as a second-generation eldest daughter, caught between cultures, codes of behavior, and colliding worlds -- yet inspired by the book that gave her a voice as a young girl, Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior. With the weight of her parents' expectations and familial pressures, Eng faced dilemmas such as duty vs. freedom, heredity vs. independence, her parents' dreams vs. her own. Among her many lessons, she had to learn that in order to be true to herself, conflict and tough choices were necessary. But with these, she found, came a wonderful payoff: the doors to opportunity flew open. Interweaving narrative, interview, analysis, and confession into a seamless whole, Warrior Lessons has no simple heroes or villains. Instead, it is the intimately rendered story of a contemporary Asian American woman's passage into a meaningful sense of power -- a story that dares to challenge the firmly-held traditions of ancient Asian cultures. In Warrior Lessons Eng becomes both guide and mentor, with practical, sister-like wisdom. In twelve inspiring lessons, she addresses the range of issues Asian American women face, including: How can we deal with family expectations? Why can our mothers be so difficult to please? Can we trust one another? What does it mean to be seductive and sexual in the face of geisha-girl stereotypes?Where is the place for anger in our lives? How do we find power in the workplace? The groundbreaking book that emerges is a luminous roadmap across the uncharted territory of Asian American women's lives, through moments of anger and epiphany to reconciliation and empowerment in a racially-sensitized society. Warrior Lessons is a book that signifies a generation and goes way beyond the limiting portrayal of what Eng calls the "Good Little Model Minority Girl." At last, here is a manual for today's woman warrior as she channels her rage and cultivates her power -- and discovers that leadership is natural.

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