Being Mute In An English Only World Chang-Rae Lee Analysis
While it is generally believed that everyone in America should speak English, immigrants included, Chang-Rae Lee portrays the everyday struggle, and emotional distress that can come with being an immigrant in the U.S. in his essay “Being Mute in an English Only World”. The author allows the reader insight to the everyday struggle, confusion, and frustration that comes with being an immigrant of any country where the language you speak is not the spoken language of that country. The author gives readers first hand personal experiences of what it’s like to be born into an immigrant family, and how it affected the home life and the lives of each member of the family separately. Throughout the essay the continuous portrayal of struggle and fear
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This fact gives insight to the disdain with which the author may have had for his parents lack of confidence and competence of the English language. “Though I was only six or seven years old, she insisted that I go out shopping with her and my younger sister. I mostly loathed the task, partly because it meant I couldn't spend the afternoon off playing catch with my friends but also because I knew our errands would inevitably lead to an awkward scene, and that I would have to speak up to help my mother.” (Lee, pg.1, 2003). In this sentence, the author captures a very large underlying theme of the essay in a very small portion of the work. The author portrays how outside of the home he lived an average American boy life, with the phrase “playing catch with my friends” compared to the way he eludes to going shopping with his mom as if it were some unbearable duty he was forced to perform because of his mother’s lack of confidence in the English language. This fact also shows a contrast between the way the author, who was a young boy when the family came to America, lived compared to his parents simply because of how much easier the English language was for the author to understand because of his being engulfed by it at a young age instead of at the adult age of his parents. Again this supplements the idea of the main repetition throughout the essay of how difficult it was to be “Mute in an English Only
This fact gives insight to the disdain with which the author may have had for his parents lack of confidence and competence of the English language. “Though I was only six or seven years old, she insisted that I go out shopping with her and my younger sister. I mostly loathed the task, partly because it meant I couldn't spend the afternoon off playing catch with my friends but also because I knew our errands would inevitably lead to an awkward scene, and that I would have to speak up to help my mother.” (Lee, pg.1, 2003). In this sentence, the author captures a very large underlying theme of the essay in a very small portion of the work. The author portrays how outside of the home he lived an average American boy life, with the phrase “playing catch with my friends” compared to the way he eludes to going shopping with his mom as if it were some unbearable duty he was forced to perform because of his mother’s lack of confidence in the English language. This fact also shows a contrast between the way the author, who was a young boy when the family came to America, lived compared to his parents simply because of how much easier the English language was for the author to understand because of his being engulfed by it at a young age instead of at the adult age of his parents. Again this supplements the idea of the main repetition throughout the essay of how difficult it was to be “Mute in an English Only