Amy Tan Mother Tongue Summary
Aisha Ahmed
Ms. Nicole Wendt
Senior Composition
23 October 2017
Language is a way we communicate and way that the nation connect with one another. Nowadays, language has become one of the first problems that the society face everywhere in the nation. Amy Tan, a Majored English and Linguistics at San Jose State University state in her essay “Mother Tongue”. The experiences she went through as a second generation chinese immigrant and also the pain that her mother went through as immigrant being judged who she wasn’t. Knowing a perfect English or another language doesn’t mean that you are educated. Most of the people in America, especially the immigrant who cannot speak English language to perfection, doesn’t mean that they are not educated or they never went school in their life. Tan and I both came from different background and language is a big thing our families. Raising by immigrant parents who speaks English language poorly is a challenging thing I face, such as translating between languages and also being able to express yourself.
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My parent are both smart and intelligent individuals. As I remember, I was working as a translator for my parents when have doctor appointment or Government stuff . Amy Tan states, “ like others, I have described it to people as ‘broken’ or ‘fractured’ English” (Tan, 259). I have been present to every appointment with my parents and I wondered how other people think of my parents. Do they think that they are not educated? Being at the doctor’s appointments I was feeling embarrassed when I had to translate to my mom when the doctor told me something in English if not annoying. I feel that it is a duty that every child has to do in order help their parents in any way they can. If I imagine that I was the one instead of my parents, they would have helped me with no hesitation like the way I help
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