Language Barriers
Language Barriers
Families tend to move to the United States looking for better job opportunities or simply for a better life for their children. Families want to Americanize and fit into the crowd as soon as possible so they cannot be judged or discriminated. They struggle to make their new home and adopted language their primary language without over thinking all the culture that will be lost in the process. Families adopt a new culture, language and state of mind, which helps them to be accepted by other residents for they are not acting different anymore. The following two authors are bilingual writers who have struggled with introducing English as their second language to their lives.
Amy Tan wrote an essay titled “Mother Tongue”, which discusses how she had learned English as a second language and how her mother’s English was not perfect, but she understood it to perfection. She was born in California because her parents had decided to migrate from China. She lived with her mother because she had lost her father and brother due to brain tumors. It mentions how her mother was discriminated against just because of her accent and “broken” English. Tan expresses in her essay: “And I had plenty of empirical evidence to support me: the fact that people in department stores, at banks, and at restaurants did not take her seriously, did not give her good service, pretended not to understand her, or even acted as if they did not hear her.” (Tan, 2011) Just because of her limited English she was treated as if she did not matter or was not part of regular society. She went through very serious and frustrating situations regarding her money and her health. Amy Tan, being born in the US, had learned English as a young girl. Her mother would take advantage of this by asking Tan to translate through phone calls her anger and frustrations when not taken seriously. (Tan, 2011) This lets us see the big gap in communication that was created from how her mother spoke
Families tend to move to the United States looking for better job opportunities or simply for a better life for their children. Families want to Americanize and fit into the crowd as soon as possible so they cannot be judged or discriminated. They struggle to make their new home and adopted language their primary language without over thinking all the culture that will be lost in the process. Families adopt a new culture, language and state of mind, which helps them to be accepted by other residents for they are not acting different anymore. The following two authors are bilingual writers who have struggled with introducing English as their second language to their lives.
Amy Tan wrote an essay titled “Mother Tongue”, which discusses how she had learned English as a second language and how her mother’s English was not perfect, but she understood it to perfection. She was born in California because her parents had decided to migrate from China. She lived with her mother because she had lost her father and brother due to brain tumors. It mentions how her mother was discriminated against just because of her accent and “broken” English. Tan expresses in her essay: “And I had plenty of empirical evidence to support me: the fact that people in department stores, at banks, and at restaurants did not take her seriously, did not give her good service, pretended not to understand her, or even acted as if they did not hear her.” (Tan, 2011) Just because of her limited English she was treated as if she did not matter or was not part of regular society. She went through very serious and frustrating situations regarding her money and her health. Amy Tan, being born in the US, had learned English as a young girl. Her mother would take advantage of this by asking Tan to translate through phone calls her anger and frustrations when not taken seriously. (Tan, 2011) This lets us see the big gap in communication that was created from how her mother spoke