Compare And Contrast Mother Tongue By Barrientos And Amy Tan

Se Habla Espan᷉ol and Mother Tongue Tanya Maria Barrientos and Amy Tan are similar but also contain some key differences. Barrientos and Tan are children of immigrants that are ashamed of their families heritage. Although Barrientos and Tan were raised within different cultures, they are both ashamed of where they came from. As Barrientos says, “I wanted to call myself Latino, to finally take pride, but it felt like a lie” (631). Barrientos wanted to speak her native language, which was Spanish, but never learned how, until she took Spanish speaking classes. Tan also felt that language was an important factor in the home. In her text, she says, “But I do think that the language spoken in the family, especially in immigrant families which are …show more content…
She spoke excellent English, but her mother did not. When her mother would speak in the English language, Tan would be ashamed of her mother’s strong accent. She was ashamed of her mother’s tongue because her English language was broken as Tan described it, bringing attention to herself. She did not like speaking to customer service to interpret for her mother all the time. Tan wanted her own independence from her family, and having to speak for her mother made her feel like her mother was weighing her down. When her mother had a CAT scan done to see if she had a brain tumor Tan felt ashamed with herself for being ashamed of her mother’s tongue. When her mother went to the hospital to get the results of the CAT scan the doctors would not give her the results and said they could not find them. After hearing this Tan called the hospital and in her perfect English asked for the results, the differences in how she was treated versus her mother experience was shocking. The doctors found the results quickly, then gave them to her mother. After this event in Tan’s life, she was no longer ashamed of her mother’s tongue. She loved her mother and wanted nothing more than for her to be proud of her and their