Educational institutions and organizations are a driving force behind much of the musical performance and appreciation seen within the United States. From receiving formal instruction on a musical instrument and performance opportunities with school ensembles to sponsoring educational summits and funding artists to perform, education plays a crucial role in creating environments for music-making. However, musical education journeys are not always positive, especially when that curriculum is forced. For many Asian Americans, lessons on the piano or another Western classical instrument were simply a childhood requirement. How are these experiences recalled and how do they shape the identities of Asian Americans who lived this common expereince?

Through my interview and conversation with my mother, we were able to identify potential motivations behind the piano lesson requirement in her upbringing. She recalled a beautiful and expensive piano that lived in her father's house and a required piano test that her mother had to pass, even though she did not own a piano. There were also components of what I would call "tough love" at play, where her parents pushed her and her siblings to attain skills of discipline and hard work as a sign of their love and care for them. Although through the lens of Chinese-American families, the work of Juan Julie Yu is tied closely to this idea of "tough love" and is particularly relevant for the contextualization of this work overall within the scope of Asian American immigrants, addressing the cultural relevance to values and morals that may have been implemented in parenting.