Amy Tan Mother Tongue Summary
English 112
14 March 2014
What is Your Tongue? Language is developed to allow people to interact in communities and it allows oneself to create an identity. In “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan, she writes about how her mother’s broken English, and about the extent that it affected her language. She writes this piece in a method that is easy to understand, and she simply expresses her personal opinion: That whenever someone doesn’t speak proper English they are susceptible to criticism and bad treatment. Amy Tan expresses how her mother is treated unfairly by people just because she cannot speak proper English. Throughout this reflection Amy mentions a troubled past, one that too this day the author is seen to struggle with. Many Americans …show more content…
Her mother often gets treated differently because of her broken English. Ms. Tan writes “My mother had gone to the hospital for an appointment to find out about a benign brain tumor…she said, the hospital didn’t apologize when they lost her CAT scan… And when the doctor finally called her daughter, me, who spoke perfect English-lo and behold-we had assurance the CAT would be found” (Tan 134). They pretend not to understand her mother trouble and as soon as they spoke to Tan they gave her the treatment people deserve. She believes that people demean her intelligence through the stereotype that people who do not speak English as native speakers do are not as intelligent as them. Although she makes a good point that her mother was treat unfairly, I personally do not believe that all people are like that. I grew up in a similar situation in which my dad spoke broken English, and I often had to translate for him. Whenever we had to go somewhere by himself I felt that they always tried to accommodate the fact that he didn’t speak perfect English. Our experiences dealing with language differ greatly, with Ms. Tan’s experience being far more negative and melancholy than one I had been accustomed to. From my experience, people are generally treated the same regardless of what language they speak
14 March 2014
What is Your Tongue? Language is developed to allow people to interact in communities and it allows oneself to create an identity. In “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan, she writes about how her mother’s broken English, and about the extent that it affected her language. She writes this piece in a method that is easy to understand, and she simply expresses her personal opinion: That whenever someone doesn’t speak proper English they are susceptible to criticism and bad treatment. Amy Tan expresses how her mother is treated unfairly by people just because she cannot speak proper English. Throughout this reflection Amy mentions a troubled past, one that too this day the author is seen to struggle with. Many Americans …show more content…
Her mother often gets treated differently because of her broken English. Ms. Tan writes “My mother had gone to the hospital for an appointment to find out about a benign brain tumor…she said, the hospital didn’t apologize when they lost her CAT scan… And when the doctor finally called her daughter, me, who spoke perfect English-lo and behold-we had assurance the CAT would be found” (Tan 134). They pretend not to understand her mother trouble and as soon as they spoke to Tan they gave her the treatment people deserve. She believes that people demean her intelligence through the stereotype that people who do not speak English as native speakers do are not as intelligent as them. Although she makes a good point that her mother was treat unfairly, I personally do not believe that all people are like that. I grew up in a similar situation in which my dad spoke broken English, and I often had to translate for him. Whenever we had to go somewhere by himself I felt that they always tried to accommodate the fact that he didn’t speak perfect English. Our experiences dealing with language differ greatly, with Ms. Tan’s experience being far more negative and melancholy than one I had been accustomed to. From my experience, people are generally treated the same regardless of what language they speak