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Immigrants into the United States often perceive education as the principal method for their children to attain a better life than they have been able to provide for them. The immigrants have dreams and hopes of their children becoming successful and working in better conditions that they had to endure in order to survive. However for the children, accomplishing the immense dreams their parents set forth is not simple. While striving to obtain an education, the children face many cultural clashes that often pit their culture or family traditions and values against the education they are demanded to attain. This is an issue that is iterated in many texts by Latina writers through personal or fictional stories. In The Latin Deli by Judith Ortiz-Cofer, …show more content…
and in A Cup of Water Under My Bed by Daisy Hernandez, both authors present the inevitable clash that occurs for the children of the immigrants through different yet powerful techniques. While Hernandez uses her personal story to highlight the clash, Ortiz-Cofer relies on the use of short stories to present the same cultural clash. Throughout both texts, the characters struggle to balance their cultural values and heritages that their parents demand of them with the difficulties of attaining an American education that is also demanded by their parents. Though in both texts, the children of immigrants have trouble balancing other aspects of their lives with the cultural values they are raised in, education often is the first cultural clash they encounter, one of the most difficult to balance and is often not easily overcome. In the process of assimilating into the American educational system, the characters often have to learn English, reduce the amount of Spanish they speak, and put studying and schoolwork ahead of family demands and expectations which eventually leads to an internal struggle in the character. In The Latin Deli, Ortiz-Cofer employs the use of short stories to highlight the internal cultural struggle the children of immigrants endure. In the first short story “American History”, the character has a small conflict with her mother about education. Her mother wanted her to mourn and attend a church service with her that night but she declined because she had to study for a test. Her education put a physical and emotional barrier between her and her mother; as her mother tried to embrace her, her books were in the way, stopping the embrace in its tracks. Her mother was hurt emotionally by her words and the physical distance between them that she spat out “you are forgetting who you are” (page 13). Her mother felt that because she decided to put her education ahead of being with her family that night, she was denying a part of who she was and was trying to become someone else. In the story “Advanced Biology” Ortiz-Cofer again highlights the cultural struggle the main character undergoes as she attains an education.
The main character was raised in the catholic faith and that was a part of her family values. She grew up believing in the biblical story of the Virgin Mary, who was impregnated without going through the process of sexual reproduction. She was forced to challenge that idea when she takes an advanced biology class and her classmate Ira, mocks her for her belief (page 124). He tries to disprove her faith in the Virgin Mary and her belief in God through “irrefutable scientific evidence” (page 125). As she continues to learn more about the world, it begins to cause a cultural conflict between her and her mother. After learning about the human reproductive system, and becoming more educated in a secular school, her views no longer matched her mother’s views. She screams in an argument that Ira’s god “doesn’t ask you to believe that a woman can get pregnant without having sex” (page 126). She was no longer led by her faith like her mother and she demanded a scientific explanation for the things she once wholeheartedly believed in. Her mother felt that she was losing her faith and a part of her family values by associating with godless people in her secular high school enrolled her in a catholic high school for the next school year (page 127). Her new education no longer discussed the human reproductive system, or questioned the validity of …show more content…
the Virgin Mary and was approved by her mother for allowing her to continue to uphold the family values. In A Cup of Water Under My Bed, Daisy Hernandez uses her personal life story to highlight the cultural conflicts caused by her education.
In elementary school, as she is begins to learn English in order to keep up with her classmates she begins to resent Spanish (page 11). Language is an essential part of any culture and as she begins to resent the language, she begins to resent a part of herself. She never learned to read or write in Spanish because she focused all her attention on learning English. The more English she learned, the more she unconsciously distanced herself from her family and even convinced herself that she is like her white teachers (page 13). Through learning English, and refusing to learn how to read and write in Spanish, she created a language barrier that helped to facilitate her loss of culture and family
ties. Though she was slowly losing her culture through increased education and learning of English that did not cause a cultural conflict with her parents. Her father scolded her when she got a bad grade on her report card and told her that she did not want to be like them (page 13). It caused a conflict between her and her aunts and within herself. Her Tía Dora and Tía Maria de Jesus did not let her get away with using Spanglish words since she did not know the correct translation but would correct her and force her to use the appropriate Spanish word (page 10). Their repeated correction of her use of Spanglish as she was learning English in school was part of the cause for the resentment she felt for Spanish. The biggest cultural conflict Daisy faced as she learned English was within her. When her father told her not to turn out like him, she immediately thought to herself that she “wants the Spanish”, and the cultural spoils that comes with it (page 13). Yet she did not make an effort to learn Spanish at that age but continued to focus on English because she thought it would make her happy instead. At her first job as a writer, she realizes that her happiness will not come from English but from Spanish (page 17). She enrolls in a Spanish class in hopes of ending the cultural turmoil she felt within her for many years. Enrolling in the class brought her back to the culture that would bring her happiness, though she tried to leave behind as she learned English over the years. Education is a pivotal method of many immigrant children escaping the lives their parents lived and ensuring a better life for themselves. The parents often push education and educational excellence but for the children it causes a great cultural conflict. The children are striving to live up to the educational standards of their parents or of society and often push away cultural or family values in the process of accepting education.
In Subtractive Schooling: US-Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring, Angela Valenzuela investigates immigrant and Mexican American experiences in education. Valenzuela mentions differences in high schools between U.S born youth and immigrants such as how immigrants she interviewed seemed to achieve in school as they feel privileged to achieve secondary education. However, she found that her study provided evidence of student failure due to schools subtracting resources from these youths. Both are plagued by stereotypes of lacking intellectual and linguistic traits along with the fear of losing their culture. As a Mexican American with many family members who immigrated to the U.S to pursue a higher education, I have experience with Valenzuela’s
Gloria Anzaldua, wrote the essay “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” communicating and describing her adolescence in a society brimming with sexism, cultural imperialism, racism, low self-esteem, and identity formation. The reason one comes to America is to finer themselves academically, and intellectually. One must learn to speak English to live among the American’s, because that is the language they speak. Though, no one has the right to deprive you of your familiar tongue. At a young age, Anzaldua was scolded, even mistreated for speaking her native “Chicano” tongue. Anzaldúa described this ignorance, cruelty, and discrimination when she states: “I remember being caught speaking Spanish at recess – that was good for three licks on the knuckles with a sharp ruler.” She overcomes this hostility throughout her life.
The writings of Amy Tan and Richard Rodriguez’s depicts a bilingual story based on two differing culture. On Mother Tongue, “Tan explores the effect of her mother’s “broken” English on her life and writing” (506). On the other hand, Richard Rodriguez “recounts the origin of his complex views of bilingual education through Public and Private Language” (512). From a child’s eyes, Tan and Rodriguez describe each joys and pain growing up in a non-English speaking family. Hence, may be viewed that cultural differences plays a major role on how one handles adversities.
...th authors as is nearly always negative. Both authors take the reader within the very small, limiting, and confusing world of migrants, a world defined by an overall physical and emotional segregation. But their separation from Anglos is counterbalanced by their intimacy with their family and community. In both book and article, the families wash, eat, sleep, and work together; in fact they work tremendously hard. Also, the characters value education, although this theme is better developed by Rivera, since his narrative spans a full year, while Bacon is limited only his experience he remembers throughout his interview. In particular, Rivera's historia "It's That It Hurts" presents the complex dilemma faced by migrant children entering racist school systems while carrying the high hopes of their family that schooling will be the children's ticket out of the fields.
In “Se Habla Español,” the author, Tanya, talks about her personal experience with dealing with language issues. Tanya was born in Guatemala and moved to the U.S when she was only three years old. Tanya’s mother did not want her to speak Spanish, because they believed that when they moved to the U.S speaking only English would help her blend in. For so long Tanya believed that speaking Spanish went hand in hand with being poor and speaking only English made her feel superior. After many years she has tried to learn Spanish but has found it quite difficult because although that is her native language it was like trying to learning a whole new language for her. In “Mother Tongue,” Amy’s explains how she has come to the realization that she speaks more than one “English,” meaning that the way she speaks in front of a crowd is different than the way she speaks with her mother. The way Amy speaks with her mother is still English although it is not proper. Amy expresses how she does not really like the phrase “broken English,” because if something is broken it needs to be fixed and she does not feel that her mother’s English needs to be
Immigrants come to America, the revered City upon a Hill, with wide eyes and high hopes, eager to have their every dream and wild reverie fulfilled. Rarely, if ever, is this actually the case. A select few do achieve the stereotypical ‘rags to riches’ transformation – thus perpetuating the myth. The Garcia family from Julia Alvarez’s book How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, fall prey to this fairytale. They start off the tale well enough: the girls are treated like royalty, princesses of their Island home, but remained locked in their tower, also known as the walls of their family compound. The family is forced to flee their Dominican Republic paradise – which they affectionately refer to as simply, the Island – trading it instead for the cold, mean streets of American suburbs. After a brief acclimation period, during which the girls realize how much freedom is now available to them, they enthusiastically try to shed their Island roots and become true “American girls.” They throw themselves into the American lifestyle, but there is one slight snag in their plan: they, as a group, are unable to forget their Island heritage and upbringing, despite how hard they try to do so. The story of the Garcia girls is not a fairytale – not of the Disney variety anyway; it is the story of immigrants who do not make the miraculous transition from rags to riches, but from stifling social conventions to unabridged freedom too quickly, leaving them with nothing but confusion and unresolved questions of identity.
Richard Rodriguez commences, “ Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” recounting the memory of his first day of school. A memory that will help support against the use of “family language” as the child 's primary language at school. Rodriguez is forced to say no: it 's not possible for children to use the family language at school. To support against the “family language” used at school, Rodriguez uses simple and complex sentences to help achieve the readers to understand that to only accept the family language is to be closed off by society; to not have a “public life” is to not share one 's life experiences with society. Bilingual Educators state that you would “lose a degree of ‘individuality’ if one assimilates. Rodriguez refutes this statement through his expressive use of diction and narration educing emotion from his audience building his pathos. Rodriguez also develops ethos due to the experiences he went
In the novel “The Book of Unknown Americans” by Cristina Henriquez, one of the most remarkable themes is the American dream of the Rivera family. Alma Rivera- one of the two main characters’s perspective in the novel’s first three chapters illustrate her and her family– the Mexican immigrants’ hopes for their new life in America. It is interesting to learn that the theme “American dream” in this book is one typical example of the immigrants who hold high hopes for a better life in America that they can leave everything of their old lifestyle behind. For Alma, the American dream is considered in terms of better education for Maribel- her daughter and better future for her family. The Rivera is one of many immigrant families who come to America because of a faith in good education for
Even if these students have achieved the highest honors and have the brains of an engineer, they aren’t able to reach their greatest potential because they simply do not have documents. Those who are undocumented are doomed to working backbreaking jobs that pay substantially below minimum wage. Spare Parts has challenged and shown me that it takes an immigrant double, or even triple the amount of toil to achieve anything in life. These boys endeavoured through adversities that many of us will never encounter. Luis luckily had a green card, but Lorenzo, Oscar, and Cristian were all living under the fear of deportation. They all wanted more after graduating from Carl Hayden but their dreams quickly vanished because the reality was that they’re illegal immigrants. When we hear the word “immigration”, we automatically think “illegal”, but what we don’t see is that these illegal immigrants are trying to reach their own American Dreams by coming to America. As the author includes Patrick J. Buchanan’s perspective on immigrants, “...families came to the United States to leech off government services.” (35), it shows us how immigrants are perceived.
Language is an important part of who we are. It influences the way we think and behave on a great scale. However, sometimes it is forced upon us to go in different directions just so we can physically and mentally feel as if we belong to the society in which we live in. Just as we see in Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” and Richard Rodriguez’s “A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood”, both authors faced some challenges along the way by coping with two different languages, while still trying to achieve the social position which they desired.
America is a presumptuous country; its citizens don’t feel like learning any other language, so they make everyone else learn English. White Americans are the average human being and act as the standard of living, acting, and nearly all aspects of life. In her essay “White Privilege: The Invisible Knapsack,” Peggy McIntosh talks about how being white has never been discussed as a race/culture before because that identity has been pushed on everyone else, and being white subsequently carries its own set of advantages. Gloria Anzaldua is a Chicana, a person of mixed identities. In an excerpt titled “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” she discusses how the languages she speaks identify who she is in certain situations and how, throughout her life, she has been pushed to speak and act more “American” like.
While reading this article one of the most shocking sections were when the students were talking to Monzó and sharing their outlook on their place and their language’s place in society. These students even at this early age are feeling how devalued their first language has been. They feel like they have to speak the right* English, only use English in public places, never their first language, and that they must assimilate to the American culture as much as possible. This reminded me of a chapter in Lippi-Green (2012)’s text. Within this chapter Lippi-Green (2012) discusses how in the United States Spanish speakers are not only expected to learn English but they are expected to learn and utilize the right* English determined by the majority and assimilate entirely to American culture. Throughout Monzó and Rueda (2009)’s text the children in conversations expressed their observation of the social order in relation to language and race. This was surprising to me since they are only in 5th grade. During a conversation with one of the children Monzó and Rueda (2009) recorded an alarming statement, “He said that his mother could not be considered American because she did not...
I chose to write my paper on the comparison and contrast of two immigration groups. I chose them because they are extremely similar once they have arrived in America, and very different culturally. The two groups that I chose are the Mexicans and the Tongans. It is never easy for someone when they arrive in a new country, but it is how you handle yourself while you are there is what counts, so my goal is to show a brief comparison of these two migrant groups. Living in Arizona you come to interact with quite a few Mexicans in your life. Many people are afraid of what they don’t understand, Mexicans and Americans. It is strange to me that Mexicans are the way that they are with their education. They seem to have very little concern for education, while the Tongans put huge bearing on their children’s education. I have personally spoken to a few Mexicans that I work with about their education, and they all say the same thing, “es no neccesarrio!” Meaning that it is not important to them. They feel that their is no future with an education, meaning if they don’t work they don’t live. I think that is one of the hardships that they have to face coming to somewhere like America, with little education it gives them little opportunity to learn English. I know a few people who are living in America and have been since their children were born. They still don’t know English and have very little concern to learn it. Yet their children know English, fluantly. So in away they are accomplishing their goal, and that is to provide a better life for their next generation. To me what the Mexican parents do for their children is a very noble concept, the problem is if th...
Tan also reflects on how her broken English with whom she shares with her mother is her mother tongue, and how this broken English has shaped who she is today. I am able to identify with Tan’s feelings as my grandmother who is a native Puerto Rican, has her own “mother tongue” as she still speaks in broken English. After my mother passed away when I was three, my grandmother moved in to help raise my sisters and I as we were very young. My grandmother used the same broken English Tan’s mother’s had used and my feelings towards it mirrored Tan’s at an early age. I remember because my father worked during the day my grandmother had to attend parent teacher conferences in his place. As I was still too young, my grandmother dragged me along and made me wait outside. We had waited in line for about two hours before finally being called for my conference. After a few minutes in, one of my teachers walks outside of the classroom and asks me if I know Spanish, to which I reply no. As the teacher walks back into the room I hear a resounding “Ma’am we must reschedule…there are other parents waiting and we cannot understand you, and we are pretty sure you
She realized the value of her language when she lost it and now treasures it. The kind of Spanish she speaks is neither English nor Spanish, but both. It is overflowing with culture from Medieval Spain, France, Germany, etc., just from the origins of the words. It is her pride and a representation of herself, fighting and living. In conclusion, in addition to Lera Boroditsky’s article proving that the structure of language affects how we think, the articles by Eric Liu, Amy Tan, and Gloria Anzaldua show how language is a foundation for a person’s culture, pride, and self.