Another, Younger Side of 'Tiger Mother' Amy Chua

A large portion of the world has seen one side of Amy Chua, the El Cerrito High alum and Yale law professor who has sparked passionate debate, innumerable headlines and no little soul-searching with her new family autobiography, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.

The portrait that comes through in her book and in the massive publicity attending it is that of an exceedingly strict mother applying an exacting "Chinese parents" approach to raising her two daughters. No sleepovers, playdates or computer games and no grades less than an A.

This Amy Chua, in the book, relents a bit in the end after her younger daughter rebels, and Chua has said that she intended more humor than many readers have perceived.

Still, even for those who've found humor in the book and sympathized with Chua's  explanation of how her story has been largely misinterpreted, her image remains largely a persona that entered public awareness as a fully formed adult, one who is driven, high voltage and extraordinarily accomplished.

El Cerrito Patch thought our readers would be interested in knowing what she was like before she left town in 1980, the year she graduated from El Cerrito High and enrolled at Harvard.

Luckily, Lisa Leal, one of Chua's classmates and friends from Portola Middle School and El Cerrito High, kindly agreed to chat about the Amy Chua, who, as valedictorian of her senior class and one of two students named "Most Likely to Succeed," was already showing signs of her future success.

Chua's humor was already well-developed as a teen. Take the caption next to Chua's senior picture saying she aspired to be a "Double Agent," for example. "That was a joke," Leal recalled.

"She's a got a fantastic sense of humor and she loves to laugh," Leal said. "That's the Amy I always used to know."

In high school, Chua boasted about her stomach of  "steel," a reference to the  lunchtime excursions that she, Leal and other friends often made to a Mexican restaurant on San Pablo Avenue, where they would engage in a contest to see who could down the most condiment cups of spicy salsa.

Chua also earned the nickname "Nibbles," for her fondness for the cinnamon rolls, chocolate chip cookies and other snacks available during the high school's former "brunch" break, Leal recalled.

Until Chua came to the Bay Area on her book tour last month, Leal had not seen her since high school. Chua did not attend any Class of 1980 reunions, said Leal, whose occupation is package design production. But after Chua's appearance at the Hillside Club in Berkeley on Jan. 20, the two reconnected and spent about an hour afterward having drinks together with some other friends at nearby César on Shattuck Avenue.

"She loves to laugh. She's playful," Leal said. "She wanted to know what everybody was doing. That's the Amy I remembered and enjoyed hanging out with."

Another strong memory was the striking change in Chua's appearance when she returned to El Cerrito High for her senior year, after having spent her junior year studying in Europe. She returned with a womanly curves, no glasses and "a big perm," Leal said.

"She was a big hit senior year. Everybody noticed her," Leal said. Chua was often seen with her close friend, a "really cute blond," Francoise Parrott. "So you really noticed these two cute girls."

Chua also was helpful. "In senior year, she sat across the aisle from me in AP English, and I always seemed to forget my book or whatever we were reading," Leal remembered. "So she'd scoot her chair over and we'd share."

Chua moved with her family from Indiana to the East Bay in 1971, when her father, Leon Chua, accepted a job as a professor at UC Berkeley, where he's still a member of the faculty.

As she relates in her book, Chua herself experienced demanding academic expectations and strict social restrictions when she was growing up, and those constraints were apparent in her life at school, Leal said.

The pair used to joke about Chua's "corruption night date," Leal said. "I used to bug her about it. I tried to loosen her up. I told her the first night she wanted a drink, I'd take her out."

"You could tell she wanted to be part of the typical teenage life, wild parties and such," Leal said. "But maybe it was her parents, or she was too disciplined, but she never did it somehow. She told me she wanted to, but I knew it would never happen."

But, Leal added, it's not true that Chua was never allowed to go on a sleepover.

"I went on a sleepover with her," Leal recalled, saying it took place around graduation with a small group of friends at a beach house at Stinson Beach.

"We had a really nice time," Leal said. "I think I brought a beer and we might have shared. It wasn't a wild party. It was pretty calm and quiet, hanging out."