Personal Narrative: My Interview With One Parent

Growing up with parents who are immigrants can present many obstacles for the children of those immigrants. There are many problems people face that we do not even realize. Things happen behind closed doors that we might not even be aware of. Writers Sandra Cisneros and Amy Tan help us become aware of these problems. Both of these authors express those hardships in their stories about growing up with foreign parents. Although their most apparent hardships are about different struggles, both of their stories have a similar underlying theme.

The first stage that is introduced by Allen and Turner, is cultural assimilation as they explain, “Both English language skills and formal education represent important aspects of cultural assimilation. At the same time, the learning of English and other cultural skills on the part of immigrants and their progeny leads to better jobs, resulting in higher income.” (141) These skills are pressured upon Sara’s transition into American culture. She’s instilled in her mind to archive a college degree as American standards required a higher education for a more successful lifestyle. Sara portrays this cultural assimilation when she’s found adhering to the culture of wealth and appearance to express her education through the image. Yezierska emphasizes the outcome of the achievement of the “American Dream” being an empowering moment for Sara. She asserts, “A triumphant sense of power filled me. Life was before me because my work was before me. I, Sara Smolinsky, had done what I set out to do. I was now a teacher in the public schools. And this was but my first step in the ladder of my new life. I was only at the beginning of things. The world outside was so big and vast. Now I’ll have my leisure and the quiet to go on and on, higher and higher.” (Yezierska

Several of the events that the Garcia girls experienced are common negative aspects of cultural integration. Harassment and discrimination are common forms of cultural conflicts that occur between two opposing cultures. Cultural values that have become forged into a person’s life usually remain with them for long periods of time. In this case, the Garcia girls were unable to completely adjust their perspectives of Dominican values to accommodate to their Americanized living situation. They held on to their traditional Dominican values, which conflicted with American culture. As a result, they experienced harassment and discrimination.

Another reason is that children learn a language by imitating the sounds they hear (mimicry) without an accent. This enables children to obtain a correct diction. Here a child has a positive experience and is able to assimilate with ease. On the other hand, an elderly person will find the learning process a challenge and to a certain extent the situation might even be so burdensome that one loses interest in learning. In Amy Tan?s speech My Mother?s English, she explains the difficulties her mother faced because she (Tan?s mother) was unable to clearly express herself. She (Tan) also felt the effects of this as a child. Not only did Tan?s mother find speaking English a barrier in the process of assimilation, but Tan herself felt her mother limited her perception (Tan 45). Since Tan?s mother was unable to speak English properly people would not give her good service and would not treat her seriously even to the extant that people ?pretended not to understand her or even acted as if they did not hear her,?(Tan 45). This is just one example of many that shows how some people have had negative experiences assimilating into American society.

Ana even goes as far as telling her mother “Why is a women’s virginity the only thing that matters? I have thoughts, feelings, and opinions.” (Real) her mother looks at her weird. On the other hand there is Ana’s teacher Mr. Guzman, who sees the benefits from sending Ana to college and leaver her dirty old neighborhood. Mr. Guzman helps Ana out by pulling some strings at Colombia University. He also tells her to apply for scholarships, but when she doesn’t he shows up at her house. When she did get into Colombia University the first person to tell her was Mr. Guzman. Ana’s mother does not support Ana leaving for college and leaving the family. Even on the day does leave, her mom doesn’t even say goodbye to her own daughter.

Mother Tongue is a story that describes how Amy Tan’s mother was treated unfairly because of her “broken English”. As the second generation of Chinese immigrants, Tan faces more problems than her peers do. Her mom, who speaks “limited” English, needs Tan to be her “translator” in order to communicate with the native English speakers. Tan has felt ashamed of her mother “broken” language at first. She then contemplates her background affected her life and her study. However, she changes her thought at the end since she realizes things behind language might be more valuable than language itself sometimes. Through the various different literary devices and rhetorical strategies such as the ethos, pathos, and logos appeals, as well as a

Children tend to have an easier time assimilating than their older counterparts; children are quickly “Americanized,” which can clash with expectations from their own culture. For example, an “Americanized” child may become embarrassed of wearing ethnic clothing once adapting to the designer clothing environment of American youth. Children also learn English at a faster pace than their parents, which taints the parent-child dynamic. Children with disrupted or minimal school education are suddenly thrown in a new educational environment. Various immigrant children struggle to keep up in class, due to different academic standards across different countries. A kid with a poor education may be overwhelmed with an American education, which has a reputation of being top-notched. Those who are unable to speak English, find it impossible to keep up with their peers, parents also may not have the education or language skills to assist their children. When my sister Mavis came to America from Ghana, she was in the 4th grade, she ended up having to repeat 4th grade because she knew almost no English and could only speak

Linda had an easier time learning English than her parents did because of help she received at school. Upon enrolling in public school in the third grade, Linda was immediately sent to ESL class where she quickly picked up on the new language. Her parents, on the other hand, had a more difficult time adapting to American culture and the English language. Linda’s parents started out working low-wage jobs and eventually, through hard work and dedication, saved enough money to open their own travel-agency business. Linda’s father even had to enroll in language school in addition to his undergraduate education in order to increase his chances of

For first generation immigrants in North America, acceptance into the mainstream society requires them to “learn or improve their English language skills and adapt to its cultural practices” (Liu 1). Liu believes second generation immigrants are better equipped to accomplish this because they are either “born in the host country or migrated at a young age” (1). When Nao’s family moved to Sunnyvale, Nao learned English quickly and internalized American values and norms. Nao was young and had “no memory of Japan from when [she] was a baby” (43), which explains her rapid adjustment to America. Unlike her parents, Nao never had a

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

“In 2009, 33 million people in the United States were second generation immigrants, representing 11% of the national population. The children of such immigrants in the U.S., also known as "second generation immigrants," experience a cultural conflict between that of their parents and that of mainstream U.S. society” (Wikipedia 1). Amy Tan the author of “Two Kinds”, and the young character in the story both are a second generation immigrants, who have struggled in their life with parents, about the culture they assimilating and their real culture.

For many immigrants, in America, language barrier is one of the many obstacles that they have to face. Ashima encountered this barrier when she was at the hospital for Gogol’s birth. “Patty smiles, a little too widely, and suddenly Ashima realizes her error, knows she should have said “fingers” and “toes.”” Ashima realized that she made a mistake. This hurts Ashima because she tried hard to learn English like many other immigrants. Immigrants not only have to worry about learning another language but they also have to worry about teaching their kids their native language. Usually, when people move and have kids in America, the kids have a hard time learning their parent’s native language. Ashima and Ashoke wanted to avoid this problem so they sent Gogol and Sonia to Bengali language and culture lessons every other Saturday because it failed “to unsettle them that their children sound just like Americans, expertly conversing in a language that still at times confounds them in accents they are accustomed not to trust.” This shows the language barrier between the parents and the kids. When Gogol and Sonia speak they sound American

My father is a good dad and a good person. For this to happen to him was a hard thing for him to go through. I love my dad, and I want him to live for a while. When he got an infection in his brain that scared my mother and I. He had to go through a surgery to get the infection out of the brain that was the size of a lemon. He was in the hospital for two months the first time. The surgeon thought it was all good for him to go home. He went home for about a month then had to go back into the hospital because the infection came back. The surgeon had to take out his left temporal lobe of his skull. It was infected,

For this assignment I decided to interview my grandparents and my parents. They have told me that many things have changed, but many things have stayed the same. They said the one thing that they have noticed that changed the most would probably be gender roles in the household.

Losing native identity is natural in a developing child. My mom immigrated to the United States in February 2006, with a tourist visa (same goes for me and my sister). Since then, my sister and I was culturalized by the American culture. However, I still manage to speak my native language, my sister though has a different story. My sister came here just before she turned 8, which was still in a developing stage. She sometimes forgets how to speak Indonesian. compare to me, my sister adjusted better to the American culture than I did. She started