Similarities Between A White Woman Of Color And Mother Tongue

Yasaman Bayat

Mr. Barrish

ENGWR 101

3 November, 2015

Taking Different Routes

The literacy narrative, ‘A White Woman of Color’, by Julia Alvarez and ‘Mother Tongue’, by Amy Tan are both wonderful tales that address the substance of race and discriminations. Both authors face challenges growing up in an immigrant household, when they strive to preserve their pride in their ethnicity and attempt to fight for equality. In essence, both Alvarez and Tan reveal their hardship and discomfort throughout their story, even though both authors’ view point face different route, their stories somehow cross the same path, when they are initially faced with discrimination, and later forced to disengage from their culture. But both tales virtually address

the value of both authors’ unique and rich diversity, and one way or another, their writings enlighten the readers of the importance of holding these diversities by not redefining their true self.

Firstly, authors; Tan and Alvarez faced difficulties growing up. Both authors state their oppression trying to preserve their homeland culture for the sake of their parents, and at the same time adapting to a completely different civilization for gaining respect. We acknowledge their hardship when Tan recounts how she coped with communicating in a simplistic manner of English with her not so fluent mother, than on the other hand, learning to develop and hone her English skills in school. Similarly to Alvarez’s side of the story, the author delineates the prejudices she had encountered throughout her life for her not so very light skin. She furthermore claims in her writing that her own mother didn’t appreciate her daughters dark skin, when she always scolded Alvarez’s father a “jibaritas”, (A White Woman of Color) a country boy for his unsophisticated background and somewhat dark skin. However, with all the displeasures and discriminations she had to face inside and outside her home, the author Alvarez, was beyond proud for being called a

Dominican, when she states that, “We have to be careful in taking up the promises of America not to adapt its limiting racial paradigms.” (A White Woman of Color) She explains thoroughly to her readers about the society’s response and attitude towards people with different background and consequently, encourages them not to redefine and replace their rich culture with limited and unmeaning backgrounds. Meanwhile Amy Tan takes a more modern approach when she shows her readers the importance of adapting to different cultures; more specifically ‘American culture’ and as a result, becoming unified with the society. She strongly disagrees with the thought of being dissimilar from the majority. She advertises the significance of being ‘Americanized’ when she barely speaks about her home culture ,and believes its’ existence limited people’s perception of her, when she claims that her Mother tongue limited her possibilities in life. (Mother Tongue)
Secondly, Both Alvarez and Tan addressed the substance of discrimination and inequality in their own unique ways by scripting it into a wonderful tales.

We acknowledge Alvarez’s struggle when she writes, “People of color were treated as if they were inferior, prone to violence, uneducated, untrustworthy, lazy-all the “bad” adjectives we were learning.” (A White Woman of Color) She recounts other incidents of discriminations when she talks about her aunt Tia Ana, from New York who had shared anecdotes with Alvarez about her dark-skinned feature that made her face a lot of discriminations on public transportations. (A White Woman of Color) In addition, Amy Tan also faced unfairness and prejudice not from her features but from her mothers’ in capabilities in speaking fluent English. When she tells us about her mother experiencing lack of respect, she states that, “people in the department stores, at banks, and at restaurant 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.” (Mother Tongue) Tan realizes that her mother’s rich accent were the core reason why she was faced with discrimination and limited

possibilities.
In conclusion, we acknowledge both authors view point face different paths, their stories on the other hand are notion for generations to come when both had different ways for defining the true meaning of pride and presenting their struggles for achieving equality. When we acknowledge one taking a modern approach, while the other sticking to their traditional roots