“Broken” English negatively impacts immigrants on a daily basis. A great example of this negative impact is shown through “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan. Tan’s parents fled from China in the 1940’s with many other people because of China’s Cultural Revolution and when they came to America, they had trouble assimilating with Americans. Tan, on the other hand, had a less difficult time adapting to the American Culture because she was born in America. In Mother Tongue, Tan begins the passage by explaining how powerful language is and then continues on to tell stories that help prove her point. Tan speaks about the different forms of english she uses through anecdotes of her experiences with her mother. According to essay, a survey showed that Asian students did much better on math achievement tests rather than english.
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Tan used anecdotes from her personal life to portray the harshness of reality. Her stories helped appeal to the audience’s emotions, helping them understand the struggle of living in society and not being able to communicate with everyone. Immigrants who speak “broken” english are not taken seriously, and it restricts them from doing everyday things. Tan’s intention for this excerpt was to show how poorly immigrants are treated, but at the same time she wanted to show that she never let other peoples opinions stand in her way of getting what she wanted. She stood up for herself and majored in English because that’s what she wanted to do. Despite the odds against her, Tan became a successful writer and proved everyone else wrong. Tan knew her mother was not as confident in herself as she was, and she knew that others faced the same obstacles her mother did, so she wrote this selection to help apprise the audience of the difficulties immigrants face everyday because they can not speak “normal”
Tan used anecdotes from her personal life to portray the harshness of reality. Her stories helped appeal to the audience’s emotions, helping them understand the struggle of living in society and not being able to communicate with everyone. Immigrants who speak “broken” english are not taken seriously, and it restricts them from doing everyday things. Tan’s intention for this excerpt was to show how poorly immigrants are treated, but at the same time she wanted to show that she never let other peoples opinions stand in her way of getting what she wanted. She stood up for herself and majored in English because that’s what she wanted to do. Despite the odds against her, Tan became a successful writer and proved everyone else wrong. Tan knew her mother was not as confident in herself as she was, and she knew that others faced the same obstacles her mother did, so she wrote this selection to help apprise the audience of the difficulties immigrants face everyday because they can not speak “normal”