She then goes to the Hsus' house which felt, “heavy with greasy odors.” (Tan 15) She acts very courteous to everyone and respects the wishes of her elders as displayed when she accepts to take her mother’s place at the mahjong table. She feels out of place because she is younger than everyone else, and she finds out that her mother had made excuses for her to the other members. Although June dropped out of college, her mother told them that she might go back for a degree. “..but I know right away she’s lying. I know my mother probably told her I was going back to school to finish my degree.” (Tan 27) As the chapter is coming to an end and the night is at its peak, Jing-Mei starts to get up to leave but when the women stop her and tell June that her mother had left behind two infant twin daughters in China, she was shocked.
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.
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.
She States, “My mother is dead and I am on a train, carrying with me her dreams of coming home. I am going to China.” (Tan 128).The setting of Guangzhou, China, helps June May realize the extreme changes of place and culture. June May was never able to understand the roots of her culture as a child; not because her parents didn’t not try to teach it to her, but because it was not part of the surroundings where she was brought up. She is finally able to resolve this struggle after going overseas with her father and meeting her twin sisters for the first time in over thirty years. Her desire to learn more about her mother’s past and culture, only pushes her to make her mother’s dream come true and to finally get rid of the guilt conscience.
I choose Jing-mei to be my character to write on even though she did not develop much personally, but the effect that the Joy Luck Club had on her were significant and it also has to do with her attitude throughout the story. To begin with, Jing-mei (a.k.a June) did not really know her mother. It’s only after her mother died that she began to understand what her mother went through; courtesy of her dad and “aunties” at the Joy Luck Club. It’s not clear in the story if June heard her mom story about the swan, but her mom Suyuan Woo came to America with the hopes of having a daughter in America “whose value will not be judged based on her husband, and who will not have to ignore herself and "swallow sorrow. "” Her mom hoped to tell her the story in English and also give her the feather from her long lost swan.
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.
When college came around, my brother’s was paid for. My future education however was discouraged. I’ll never forget my father’s words to me when it was my turn to go to college. “Why waste money sending you to college when you will just end up like your mother, getting married and raising babies. She graduated from RISD (Rhode Island School of Design) and never used her degree.” This was a stereotype that was ingrained and driven into me, defeating my aspirations for many years, but not squelching my desire altogether.
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.
Velez2 Jennifer Velez Comp107 Miss Atzeni 3/22/2012 The Struggle to Be an All-American Girl By Elizabeth Wong In Elizabeth Wong’s writing on how she struggled to be an “All-American” girl, she expresses the strict religion and culture brought on by her single-parent raising mother, when all she only wanted was to fit in with American culture. While Elizabeth and her brother wanted to play childhood games, such as ghost hunt, with their friends their mother was stern on the importance of learning the language of their heritage. She would walk them seven long blocks to Chinese school, no matter how often they pleaded with her to not attend. Elizabeth wasn’t fond of the smell of the school or that the learning was restricted. She felt that American school would be a better fit for her.
In most cases this is true, for when they grow up they eventually figure out that they can reflect (retrace) their problems to that of their parents, and later understand what they had to go through. In the story The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, Jing-mei is (acts like) an ignorant girl to her mother. Whatever tactic her mother tries on her to make her a better person she rejects. Jing-mei is constantly trying to hide her Chinese heritage and even changes her name to “June” to conform to American ways. But as she moves on in life, she begins to regret her past actions and finds out that her mother’s difficulties and problems, are (now) put on her shoulders and (now) for her to solve.