Mother_Tounge

Mother Tongue The story “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan starts out by the author explaining that she is a writer that is fascinated by the written word and the different types of English she grew up with. She goes on to talk about a speech was giving and has given many times, as she realizes that she has never used the different forms of English with her mother, as her mother is in the crowed. The author wrote about a time where she was consciously thinking about how she spoke to her mother and realized she often used the same type of English with her husband. She tells of a time she videotaped her mother speaking as she translates it to her story. She wonders how her mother understands the things she reads or listens to. Things she doesn’t even understand. She often has people telling her they can’t or can hardly understand what her mother if saying. She then goes in to describe her mother’s English as “broken” or “fractured”. These terms bothered her. She explains that as a child she was ashamed at how her mother spoke and how her mother was treated because of the way she spoke. The author explains how as a child she was often forced to make phone calls on behalf of her mother because she could speak proper English and was treated better and could relay the message better because of that. She recounts an incident where she had to make a phone call to her mother’s stoke broker, while her mother was upset and yelling on the other side of her, telling her what to say, only to be in New York the next week to find her mother yelling at him in person with her “broken” English. While growing up she tells how she believes that the type of English she learned at home she was held back in school. She found to excel in math or other subjects but English she never did as well as she thought she should. She was often asked asked why more Asian-Americans writers or why they were not in more writing classes. And she wonders if more Asian-Americans grew up with the same “broken” English she did, as they often did better in other subjects.