Summary Of Mother Tongue By Amy Tan

In 1998, Eric Liu wrote a book about his struggle with acculturation titled “The Accidental Asian”. A chapter within the book called “Notes of a Native Speaker” depicts an essay written by Liu which fully describes his struggles with race and how he overcame them. Eric Liu is an American born Taiwanese Asian. His parents immigrated to the United States before he was born and in so, gave him a mixed cultural background. He started becoming a writer after attending Yale University and graduating from Harvard Law School. In his “Notes of a Native Speaker” author Eric Liu argues that as he was “becoming white” he was achieving, learning the ways of the upper

3. In paragraphs 10 through 13, Tan juxtaposes her mother’s English with her own. The point these quoted passages make is to show how different was her mother’s English from her English.

The essays, "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan and "Public and Private Language" by Richard Rodriguez are recollections of both of the author’s personal encounters and difficulties with the gap that was created between their families by differences in languages. These two writers grew up with bilingual families, in which English was not the primary language. Consequently, they had a hard time accepting and understanding the issues surrounding the different languages they spoke with their families at home, and within society. Because of this, the gap between their public and private languages that had been created through the introduction of a second language slowly grew larger, and eventually impacted their relationships with their family and caused them to view them in a different light. In their writing, Both Tan and Rodriguez reflect on their personal experiences and memories and illuminate the effects that a private language can have on various aspects of life.

Imagining journeying across the globe to better your life, this concept sounds familiar to many immigrant Americans. They all come across the globe to improve the lives of their families and themselves. Many people who move across the world are foreign to the language and culture. In many instances, their children are representing them. The children elaborate what the parents cannot. In Mother Tongue by Amy Tang, she writes the struggles her mother had been through while living in America. While she knew the language, her accent made speaking difficult to understand. Many people wrote her off without even attempting to understand her needs. When you’re an immigrant it is heartbreaking, seeing your parents struggle with the language while you

The teenage years and transition to adulthood is in itself a very difficult period. Blending or fitting in are omnipresent issues that must be dealt with. For children of immigrants, this difficulty is only intensified through language. Both Amy Tan and Khang Nguyen strategically use narrative anecdotes and employ several rhetorical devices to illustrate this struggle in their works, “Mother Tongue” and “The Happy Days,” respectfully. Amy Tan chooses her childhood home as the primary setting of her work. This allows her to focus primarily on her conversations and interactions with her mother. However, she also gives several anecdotes in which her mother’s background and improper English negatively affected her, outside the home. Through

Chang-Rae Lee’s Native Speaker expresses prominent themes of language and racial identity. Chang-Rae Lee focuses on the struggles that Asian Americans have to face and endure in American society. He illustrates and shows readers throughout the novel of what it really means to be native of America; that true nativity of a person does not simply entail the fact that they are from a certain place, but rather, the fluency of a language verifies one’s defense of where they are native. What is meant by possessing nativity of America would be one’s citizenship and legality of the country. Native Speaker suggests that if one looks different or has the slightest indication that one should have an accent, they will be viewed not as a native of

Many new arrivals still struggle to survive and often Chinese Americans still encounter suspicion and hostility. Chinese Americans have achieved great success and now, like so many others, they are stitching together a new American identity. As Michelle Ling, a young Chinese American, tells Bill Moyers in Program 3, “I get to compose my life one piece at a time, however I feel like it. Not to say that it’s not difficult and that there isn’t challenge all the time, but more than material wealth, you get to choose what you are, who you are.” (www.pbs.org)

Questions One: In the article “Mother Tongue,” Amy Tan discusses how her mother created multiple legacies. The one legacy her mother created that she values the most is her ability to speak multiple Englishes. Growing up, Amy Tan did not view this legacy highly. Her mom spoke Chinese English and Amy spoke Chinese English and American English. Amy claims, “... some of my friends tell me they understand 50 percent of what my mother says.

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.

After reading Lisa Lowe’s article, “Immigration, Citizenship, Racialization: Asian American Critique,” it was clear that her thesis and main idea was about the Asian immigrants cultural politics. She tries to situate the legal, political, and economic meaning as a formation of the Asian American emergence within a “United States national and international comprehension.” Lowe also looks at how the asian citizen is defined against the Asian immigrant, “legally, economically, and culturally.” Throughout my essay, I will discuss the political restrictions against Asian immigrants through the help of Lowe’s text and the class presentations.

There are numerous bilingual and multicultural individuals on the planet today. For some, decisions of which language they utilize, and how they utilize it, relate to what social or social group they have a place with. Amy Tan, a Chinese American writer, depicts this well in her short exposition “Mother Tongue”. Tan experienced childhood in two unfathomably unique universes utilizing diverse English’s. The primary world, which comprises of her nearby family, she talks what we may call “broken” or “constrained” English. The second world, which is her business and expert world, tan talks and composes culminate standard and scholastic English.

In “Mother Tongue,” Amy Tan an American writer, shares her experience growing up with the family where no one speaks perfect English, and how it affected her education and her life. As the second generation of Chinese immigrants, Tan faces more problems than her peers do. Her mother, who speaks limited English needs Tan to be her “Translator” to communicate with the native English speakers. Tan states, “I was ashamed of her English” (2). Her mother is like a burden to her, at least in Tan’s early years. But the cultural conflict she becomes the theme of her writing and it is under this situation she wrote many novels and essays including “Mother Tongue.”

Amy Tan’s ,“Mother Tongue” and Maxine Kingston’s essay, “No Name Woman” represent a balance in cultures when obtaining an identity in American culture.  As first generation Chinese-Americans both Tan and Kingston faced many obstacles. Obstacles in language and appearance while balancing two cultures. Overcoming these obstacles that were faced and preserving heritage both women gained an identity as a successful American.

Amy Tan is a popular American writer who likes to focus on mother daughter styles. Tan would normally get story situations and ideas from her personal experiences with her mother. Tan writing on the level of english she had began to make her notice the amount of variation in the english language. Growing up with her mother helped her notice this with how her mother would speak english compared to her friends and this gave her idea to write “Mother Tongue”. Tan’s purpose for writing “Mother Tongue” is that americans can be unaccepting of different languages and often lead to stereotypes or misconceptions being created. Tan demonstrates this purpose through use of personal experiences while using a critical or disheartened tone.

In the essay, “Mother Tongue”, Amy Tan lays out examples of noticing the different Englishes in her life and how she incorporates them into her writing. She also breaks down the different versions of English that have taken root in her life. Tan notes that she includes all the Englishes of her life in her book, The Joy Luck Club. Tan, the daughter of immigrants, learned to navigate between the “perfect” English of her professional life and the “broken” English of her youth. The author’s main claim of there being no perfect way of speaking English is one that can be easily recognized because Tan gives clear examples of the diverse versions of English in her life, she pinpoints moments in which she sees the differences and discovers how to accept and acclimate these differences to her life and career.