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A Mother’s Daughter
I smelled different. I wasn’t allowed to shave my legs, I attended Chinese School for ten years, and my favorite meal consisted of a warm barbecue flavored pork atop a bowl of white rice.
Still, I loved the fireworks on the Fourth of July. Still, I would swim in the public pool and eat blue popsicles in the summer. At home, my mother would speak Cantonese to me and I would respond in English. As an American-born girl of twelve in a predominately white town, we had a system. In public, I was the mother—checking out our library books, reading the labels on the packages of ground pork and beef in the supermarket. I was the one who taught my mother how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I was the one who taught her how to send a text. We fell into a familiar rhythm. Eventually, she stopped trying to take control; “You’re the expert,” she would say, “Let me learn from you.”
At some point along the way, I lost my Chinese.
Cantonese, my first language, gradually became a memory. Born to first-generation immigrants who returned to Hong Kong when I w...
Chang Rae-Lee, author of "Mute in an English-Only World," moved to America from Korea when he was only six or seven years old. He adopted the English language quickly, as most children do, but his mother continued to struggle. "For her, the English language…usually meant trouble and a good dose of shame and sometimes real hurt" (Lee 586). It is obvious, though, that his mother was persistent in her attempt to learn English and deal with her limited culture experience, as Lee accounts of her using English flash cards, phrase books and a pocket workbook illustrated with stick-people figures. Lee sympathetically connects with the audience through his mother, and forces them to make a personal conclusion when he ends the article with a lingering question in the reader’s mind; what if they had seen her struggling? Would they have sat back and watched or stepped up to help?
In the work of Amy Tan’s “Mother’s Tongue” she provides a look into how she adapted her language to assimilate into American culture. She made changes to her language because her mother heavily relied on her for translation. She was the voice of her mother, relaying information in standard English to those who were unable to understand her mother’s broken english. She tells about her mother’s broken english and its impact on her communication to those outside their culture. Her mothers broken english limited others’ perception of her intelligence, and even her own perception of her mother was scewed: Tan said, “I know this for a fact, because when I was growing up, my mothers ‘limited’ English limited my perception of her. I was ashamed of her English. I believed that her English reflected the quality of what she had to say.” (419) The use of standard english was a critical component to Tan’s assimilation into American culture. Standard English was an element she acquired to help her mother but more importantly is was an element that helped in her gain success as a writer. Tan changed her ‘Englishes’ (family talk) to include standard English that she had learnt in school and through books, the forms of English that she did not use at home with her mother. (417-418) Tan realized the ch...
Despite growing up amidst a language deemed as “broken” and “fractured”, Amy Tan’s love for language allowed her to embrace the variations of English that surrounded her. In her short essay “Mother Tongue”, Tan discusses the internal conflict she had with the English learned from her mother to that of the English in her education. Sharing her experiences as an adolescent posing to be her mother for respect, Tan develops a frustration at the difficulty of not being taken seriously due to one’s inability to speak the way society expects. Disallowing others to prove their misconceptions of her, Tan exerted herself in excelling at English throughout school. She felt a need to rebel against the proverbial view that writing is not a strong suit of someone who grew up learning English in an immigrant family. Attempting to prove her mastery of the English language, Tan discovered her writing did not show who she truly was. She was an Asian-American, not just Asian, not just American, but that she belonged in both demographics. Disregarding the idea that her mother’s English could be something of a social deficit, a learning limitation, Tan expanded and cultivated her writing style to incorporate both the language she learned in school, as well as the variation of it spoken by her mother. Tan learned that in order to satisfy herself, she needed to acknowledge both of her “Englishes” (Tan 128).
The Essay written by Amy Tan titled 'Mother Tongue' concludes with her saying, 'I knew I had succeeded where I counted when my mother finished my book and gave her understandable verdict' (39). The essay focuses on the prejudices of Amy and her mother. All her life, Amy's mother has been looked down upon due to the fact that she did not speak proper English. Amy defends her mother's 'Broken' English by the fact that she is Chinese and that the 'Simple' English spoken in her family 'Has become a language of intimacy, a different sort of English that relates to family talk' (36). Little did she know that she was actually speaking more than one type of English. Amy Tan was successful in providing resourceful information in every aspect. This gave the reader a full understanding of the disadvantages Amy and her mother had with reading and writing. The Essay 'Mother Tongue' truly represents Amy Tan's love and passion for her mother as well as her writing. Finally getting the respect of her critics and lucratively connecting with the reaction her mother had to her book, 'So easy to read' (39). Was writing a book the best way to bond with your own mother? Is it a struggle to always have the urge to fit in? Was it healthy for her to take care of family situations all her life because her mother is unable to speak clear English?
Amy Tan’s “Fish Cheeks” describes Tan’s upbringing as a Chinese-American caught in between two cultures. In “Fish Cheeks” Tan’s crush Robert and his family were invited to Tan’s house for Christmas, Amy was embarrassed of Robert’s impression of her Chinese relatives, cuisine, and culture (Tan 110). Tan’s situation is not uncommon as millions of first generation Americans encounter similar situations while living within two cultures. Albeit the extreme embarrassment Tan endured throughout the encounter, she contends that her mother taught her a valuable lesson in appreciating her Chinese culture (111). Ultimately, Tan's purpose was to implore first generation Americans to embrace both of their cultures, in spite of its unique traditions (Tan
In Maxine Hong Kingston’s autobiographical piece “Silence”, she describes her inability to speak English when she was in grade school. Kindergarten was the birthplace of her silence because she was a Chinese girl attending an American school. She was very embarrassed of her inability, and when moments came up where she had to speak, “self-disgust” filled her day because of that squeaky voice she possessed (422). Kingston notes that she never talked to anyone at school for her first year of silence, except for one or two other Chinese kids in her class. Maxine’s sister, who was even worse than she was, stayed almost completely silent for three years. Both went to the same school and were in the same second grade class because Maxine had flunked kindergarten.
English is an invisible gate. Immigrants are the outsiders. And native speakers are the gatekeepers. Whether the gate is wide open to welcome the broken English speakers depends on their perceptions. Sadly, most of the times, the gate is shut tight, like the case of Tan’s mother as she discusses in her essay, "the mother tongue." People treat her mother with attitudes because of her improper English before they get to know her. Tan sympathizes for her mother as well as other immigrants. Tan, once embarrassed by her mother, now begins her writing journal through a brand-new kaleidoscope. She sees the beauty behind the "broken" English, even though it is different. Tan combines repetition, cause and effect, and exemplification to emphasize her belief that there are more than one proper way (proper English) to communicate with each other. Tan hopes her audience to understand that the power of language- “the way it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth”- purposes to connect societies, cultures, and individuals, rather than to rank our intelligence.
1-The author’s struggle and disinterest to learn her native Language; “The Struggle to be an All American Girl”.
The purpose of Amy Tan’s essay, “Mother Tongue,” is to show how challenging it can be if an individual is raised by a parent who speaks “limited English” (36) as Tan’s mother does, partially because it can result in people being judged poorly by others. As Tan’s primary care giver, her mother was a significant part of her childhood, and she has a strong influence over Tan’s writing style. Being raised by her mother taught her that one’s perception of the world is heavily based upon the language spoken at home. Alternately, people’s perceptions of one another are based largely on the language used.
Nowadays English an international language plays a more and more important role in the world. China wants to communicate well with the outside world and CEnglish has become the most useful instrument. The Ministry of Education has made the policy on English teaching in the primary school. Their reason is that English should be taught as early as possible. It's true that we need more people who can speak good English and communicate with other countries so as to bring economic profit to our country and introduce China to the world Cand to improve the country's image in the world, but is it the truth that teaching English in primary school is well preparedCor is everything ok for English learning?
Often when science fiction writers or television producers make up a futuristic world, little to no thought is paid to the language the inhabitants of that world will be speaking. Usually language is never mentioned, or native tongues are translated to English through some form of external force, like the babel fish in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, or C-3PO. The world of Joss Whedon's short lived television series, Firefly, and its follow-up movie, Serenity, is created with such attention to detail and creativity that its cult status is easily understandable. The back story of this space western is that the United States and China were the two superpowers that expanded into outer space to colonize terraformed planets, their influence over hundreds of years formed a combined culture containing characteristics of both. For example there is a scene at the dinner table during the pilot episode where people of the crew eat with chopsticks and drink from western style tin cups, and the Alliance flag is depicted as United States and Chinese flags overlaying each other. (1, 4) This combination of cultural and political artifacts is not the only result of this dual influence. One of the most pronounced aspects of Chinese influence is in the nearly universal bilingualism throughout the universe of Firefly, referred to in the show and by fans as simply the 'verse. The relationship between English and Chinese on the show demonstrates some aspects of the extended diglossia defined by Fishman as a single society uses two or more codes where each serve “functions distinct from those considered appropriate for the other” and both are “nonconflictual” in a stable environment. (2, 85)
At the time, though I spoke Mandarin without a foreign accent, my vocabulary did not extend far beyond a grade-school level, and I was next to illiterate. Well aware of that, my parents, fond followers of the "sink or swim" theory, dropped me off at the local Chinese school the first day of classes and promptly disappeared.
The numerous cultures and beliefs in the world give variety and spice to life. In each culture, there are different values that are given focus and instilled into the youth. As such, when society brings two or more different cultures together, there is bound to be a tendency to clash because different people hold different values and beliefs. In Amparo Ojeda’s piece, “Growing up American: Doing the Right Thing”, Amparo gives evidence of this. While she was receiving her education in America she stayed with an American family and was able to experience first-hand the differences between cultures. Raised in the Filipino culture, where “children were reminded to never interrupt when adults were talking, and to avoid annoying behavior, especially in the company of adults” (Ojeda 116). She saw just the opposite while spending ti...
Being born in the Philippines and being raised between my birth country and Japan, I was taught completely different languages than that I speak today. From the beginning of my life, I was embedded with the languages of Japanese, Tagalog, and some Chinese. Not only did I learnt and understood these languages, I was also influenced with the Asian lifestyle. I had to show respect to my elders, always be with my family, and incorporated religion and cultural traditions into my everyday life. Then, with a sudden whisk, I was brought to America at the age of five years old with my mother. My mother wanted to live that "American dream" that she has heard. So with her "imperfect English" and me with no knowledge of English, we first moved to Oregon. There I attended my first English school. I was shocked with the culture differences that they practiced in America. I realized that the families are broken apart, the Asian Americans appear to have never practiced their cultural traditions and language, and some children do not pay their respects to their elders. I see how American culture collides with what I was taught; I progressively adapted this culture change. I gradually adjusted to my environment in Oregon, and then my mother decided to move to California, then to Hawaii. Moving to this new country and jumping around the different states, learning a new language and culture was imperative. Taking in English and the American ways slowly over took me; thus caused me to lose myself I
Being born into a Korean background always meant that speaking Korean would be an important aspect in my life, however, living in Australia since I was three and going to an English speaking school meant that Korean would be my second language. I could speak very simple Korean, but could not write or read properly. I always had difficulty communicating with my grandparents over the phone and spoke more English than Korean at home, even though my parents could not understand English well. Due to family expectations, my mum forced me to go to Korean school every Saturday when I was in grade three. During school, I would always be on...