William Cardenas English Mother Tongue My Mother Tongue is a story about a young lady that is second generation in her family and has grown up in the United States. Growing up in an Asian house hold with her parents coming from China learning the language was a lot harder than a person who’s parents were born in the United States. This constructed a family known language that could be understood a hundred percent by their siblings. One of the siblings was Amy Tan, it came to her attention that her mom’s English wasn’t that clear and lacked grammar. She made a book which was about her writing, her life, and of course her book.
I can say that it is very uncommon to find two people that speak the exact same English because there are so many different forms of the language and same thing with Spanish. This is the argument that Amy Tan makes in her story, and the one I am really agree with. In “Mother Tongue”, Tan discusses the many ways in which the language that she was taught affected her life. Throughout the story, she describes her relationship with her mother, who speaks “broken” English, and how her perception of language has changed due to her mother. Whenever Tan was younger, she was always ashamed and embarrassed of the way her mother spoke because it would often sound weird and many people not familiar with her way of speaking found it very difficult to understand her.
Her journey starts with her childhood and progresses through learning her mother’s English, to English in school and concludes with her becoming a writer. Tan grew up the child of Chinese immigrants. Her mother spoke, what Tan refers to as, “broken” English. As a child, she found herself ashamed of the way her mother spoke. This “broken” English limited even Tan’s own perception of her mother; she believed her mother’s imperfect English meant that her mother’s ideas and thoughts must be imperfect as well.
In return she has to do Charlese homework and Charlese’s sister Juju has to give Maleeka some cloths to wear so she doesn’t have to wear her mothers clothing. However throughout the book Maleeka starts to grow resentful to Charlese abusive behavior towards her and the other students. Miss Saunders, a new
The Nuer have found difficulty academically, in the work force, and in health care among other issues. Coming to America, the Nuer are already familiar with the importance of education. Men, women, and children alike, want to succeed academically because they know it will give them better opportunities for well paying jobs and if they ever go back to Sudan, there diploma or degree will be well respected and earn them prestige. Unfortunately, it is not as easy for the Nuer to be placed in school as it is for the typical American. The Nuer are inexperienced in the English language with most women and children never having formal English training and only some of the men having some experience
Although English is not my second language, I feel that “proper” English is. From Amy Tan’s essay and my own life experience, I believe that too many people in America are treated unfairly because they do not speak “proper” English. I remember growing up with my aunt and having trouble with my English because the school system was so poor. I had to be taken out of my normal classes in third grade and put in a class for kids who had trouble with their English. On career day my teacher asked me what I wanted to be, and I told her I wanted to be a lawyer.
Novelist Amy Tan (Libi Pedder / Camera Press / Retna) Tan proves her point about parents’ influence on people’s life when she states “I think my mother’s English almost had an effect on limiting my possibilities in life as well”. By talking about how her mother’s English lacked a certain wholeness and clarity, she explains why her thoughts about her mother tongue were different when she was a child; “I believed that her English reflected the quality of what she had to say.” People in department stores, at banks, and at restaurants didn’t take her mother seriously, didn’t give her good service, pretended not to understand her, or even acted as if they didn’t hear her. Here Tan emphasizes the importance of mother tongue in somebody’s life. She believes that people may not be treated respectfully because of their poor speaking of any language. She never reflects on her mother’s difficulties as something that could’ve motivated her to become a writer.
Some of my goals were to learn English, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to communicate and succeed as an immigrant. The decision to come to USA was my parents decision , at first it was hard because I didn’t like the idea, but later on I realize that I didn’t have other option so I decided to start learning . “In America everybody can be successful and if we try hard everybody can make their dreams come true” my teacher used to always tell me that and I could never forget it even when she forgets to told me that it wouldn’t be easy. At first I felt that I could never learn, because when I was listening it sounds like people said 1000 words without pause. Well that’s because I don’t know how to speak it an I try to listen what people said, but it always got me confused Last name 2 because when I read, it was so different from what I heard.
The second time she noticed one of her “Englishes” was when walking with her mother and husband, she said “not waste money that way” which for her is an intimate language used only by her family. Her mother’s “broken” English contradicts how much she actually understands, this reminds us that even though her mother’s English seem “broken” it does not reflect her intelligence. Even though her mother was categorized with limited ideas by the people she would to because of the way she spoke tan rejects the idea that her mother English is “limited” or “broken”. She emphasizes the fact that even her mother recognizes that her opportunities and interactions in life are limited by her English. When the author was young she used to have to call people on the phone and act as if she was her mother in order to get people to pay attention to her like when she had to yell at her mother’s stockbroker for not sending a check.
Tan explains that language in immigrant families tends to have a greater role in shaping the language of the child, and how it can limit the possibilities available to them. She believes that the broken English that was spoken in her home had an effect on her school work and test scores. Even though her English was not poor, her scores in math and science tended to much higher. As a writer Tan frequently gets asked “why is there not more Asian-Americans represented in American Literature?” Tan notices as a whole Asian students do better in math and sciences than in English which makes her wonder if other Asian-Americans grew up in a home where the English that was spoken might be considered “broken” or “limited”. When Tan first started writing fiction she thought writing using wittily crafted sentences would show how well she had mastered English.