The Language Of Silence By Maxine Hong Kingston

For more than 300 years, immigrants from every corner of the globe have settled in America, creating the most diverse and heterogeneous nation on Earth. Though immigrants have given much to the country, their process of changing from their homeland to the new land has never been easy. To immigrate does not only mean to come and live in a country after leaving your own country, but it also means to deal with many new and unfamiliar situations, social backgrounds, cultures, and mainly with the acquisition and master of a new language. This often causes mixed emotions, frustration, awkward feelings, and other conflicts. In Richard Rodriguez’s essay “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood”, the author

Migrants are effected by the language used to describe them. Researchers have been attempting to prove the how and the why of this statement. To do so they have explored family dynamics, deportation laws, childhood development, language framing, gender neutral language, racialization and criminalization. Scholars in many fields have addressed these important questions. Within Linguistic Anthropology, scholars such as Sarah Gallo (2014) and Hilary Parsons Dick (2011) have explored the role of language in shaping immigrant communities. Within Legal Anthropology and Law reviews, meanwhile, scholars such as Phyllis Chock (1996) and Olivia

Ever been in a situation where you were the only person who couldn’t understand a specific language? Ever been in a situation where you felt no one could understand you? Do you remember how it made you feel in that moment? Imagine feeling that way all the time; alone, isolated, and misunderstood. Jimmy Santiago Baca and Maxine Hong Kingston do a great job of conveying these feelings in their articles. In the article “Coming into Language”, Jimmy Santiago tells his story as a troubled young man who never saw the value in reading and writing. And in the article “The Language of Silence”, Maxine Hong Kingston tells her story as a first generation Chinese American who struggles with speaking English. As for me, I’ve always struggled with

Communication is easy and mothers can talk with their children and they can connect with them. Some people who have this benefit are unaware that some families do not have this advantage in their homes. Lee Thomas and Linh Cao understand that some families have language change through each generation. Cao herself lived in house where her relatives used several different languages and learned first hand that there are many losses when a family doesn’t share a common language.

Unconsciously, we all speak different languages; we categorize the way we speak by the environment and people at which we are speaking too. Whenever a character enters an unfamiliar environment, they experiment with language to find themselves and understand reality. For immigrants, language is a means to retain one’s identity; however, as they become more assimilated in their new communities their language no longer reflects that of their identity but of their new cultural surroundings. When an immigrant, immigrates to a new country they become marginalized, they’re alienated from common cultural practices, social ritual, and scripted behavior. It’s not without intercultural communication and negotiation

The process of assimilating to a new culture, environment, and language is never an easy task for immigrants settling in America. Whether forced to make such decisions to relocate to America or doing so by their own desires, all immigrants have had to survive the physical and psychological challenges encountered along the way. Foreigners are not only challenged by having to adapt to the physical surroundings, but they are also challenged by the unfamiliar social and cultural environment. The academic report “Living in America: Challenges Facing New Immigrants and Refugees” edited by Katherine Garrett, identifies a variety of problems foreigners encounter according to conducted studies and interviews with immigrants in ten cities across the United States. The narrative essay “Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood “by Richard Rodriguez tells a story about the troubles Rodriguez and his family faced while first

Each lecture has an important message for the readers. One of the most interesting and motivating readings found in “Prose Reader's book by Kim and Michael Flachmann” is “Public and Private Language by Richard Rodriguez”. In this reading the author narrates the experiences of his life when he emigrated to a foreign country and the difficulties and challenges he had to face. It is a huge challenge, occasionally people are afraid of changes and start a new life. This essay has a sentimental and realistic purpose, because the author illustrates how people who immigrate face the language barrier and how difficult is learning another language. The author faced a few challenges in this reading from the educational, social and family point of view.

For many Americans, it goes without saying that for immigrants to this country, there is no higher virtue than complete assimilation. This silent bias is the cause of much of the conflict in the U.S. throughout history and today. One of these troubles is shown in Richard Rodriguez’s autobiography Hunger of Memory, where he describes his experiences at age six, when he first began to be diverted from his culture. He then explains the exact moment when there was a damaging change in his life, when the nuns from his school paid his parents a visit at home. They insisted that English be the only language practiced in his home. He describes the clear ethical dilemma of being involved in a kind of English-Only Movement that affected him in his family’s day to day interaction. Compromise, and a cultural exchange is important, but it becomes a problem when there is a loss of identity that consumes a way of living and begins to change relationships within a culture or family. There are many models of assimilation, but the predominant model in America today is the one-way assimilation like Rodriguez experienced with his family. Unfortunately, since the start of the Twentieth Century, the United States immigration policies have used one-way assimilation to reinforce an ethnic hierarchy in American Culture. Of these policies, the naturalization process, educational structure, and the recent occurrence with child immigration on the U.S.-Mexico border, has highlighted one-way assimilation

Social Dialogue There were moments in time when we were growing up, that we thought our parents would not listen to us, understand us, or hear our side of the story and vice versa. Our parents would constantly tell us what to do, and we may not do what we were being told the first few times and it just to our parents it seems as if we just never listen. They would talk and their words would go in one ear out the other. In Lisa Delpit's "The Silenced Dialogue”, Delpit interviewed a few school and university teachers and administrators.

It is beautiful to see how language has different interpretations. It can be a different language from half way around the world or it can be a dialect. It can be an accent or a more loosened form of English. It is used every day, becoming a tool for growth and before people know it, it becomes this soul tweaking tool that raises and composes a personality and identity within a culture and family. As esteemed novelist and writer Amy Tan describes in her essay,Mother Tongue, it is “the language spoken in the family, especially in immigrant families which are more insular, plays a large role in shaping the language of the child” (181). Growing up

Critically acclaimed author, Amy Tan, in her essay “Mother Tongue”, considers cultural standards and preconceived notions propagated by society in the terms of language. Tan explores the perceptions behind those who speak in ‘broken English’ and the validity of all forms of self-expression by revisiting past experiences in her own life with her mother. She adopts a sincere and emotional tone in order to expose audiences to the discrimination many immigrants face in society on a continual basis. Ultimately, through the use of devices such as definition, comparison and contrast, and her masterful command of language; Tan expresses her central claim that all of her ‘englishes’ are deserving of recognition and respect.

NAMI offers many programs throughout the organization, such as Peer to Peer, NAMI Family to Family, Homefront Program, and Ending the Silence. The results of these programs had to do with the social movement, which brought the awareness of mental health, though the news media. The most useful program is Ending the Silence, which NAMI goes to school to teach middle and high school students about the signs and symptoms of mental illness, and how to recognize the early warning signs. NAMI wants the students to know the importance of acknowledging those warning signs, and encourage them to give a hand to those who needs it, because anyone can make a difference. John Kirwan, the author of Stand by Me, talks about his experiences with talking to

The language barrier exemplifies the idea of a disconnect between their two cultures, and the American Dream is proved to be a harsher reality than imagined. For millions of immigrants, the United States promises a fresh start, away from the troubles of their cultural home. But for many, assimilation proves difficult, isolating many from both their communities, leaving them in a world separate from the one they left, but not fully in the one they hope to join. Works Cited Henrickson, Shu-Huei. "

Immigration is the road to self-identity. The society in Chang-Rae Lee’s Native Speaker exhibits alienation towards select individuals. Native Speaker shows how people are subjected and affected by alienation as well as how they escape. Main character Henry Park views how his society segregates individuals of many—including his own—ethnicity. Immigration coexists with alienation in Lee’s society, bringing advantages coupled with affliction.

“Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language” offers a view into the life an immigrant family and the journey of learning a new language. Eva Hoffman, narrator and main character, provides an inside of her life as a result of her family migration from Poland to Canada. Throughout this telling autobiography, Hoffman experiences emotions from adolescent to adulthood. The incidents lived by this family are relatable to immigrants all around the world. As an individual coming from an immigrant family and teaching immigrant students, I found this book extremely genuine to the feelings of hope, disillusion, denial, acceptance, and many other stages by which individual that left their homeland go through.