The Surprising Problem Mother Tongue by Amy Tan Exposes

Immigration to America is not anything new as populations from across the world have been moving to America for 4 centuries now. Most have simply been looking for better lives elsewhere, as their home countries might have been struck with war, an outbreak of disease, or simply wanted more freedom, which of course is the first thing that the U.S promises its citizens. So, when you read the article “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan, you are surprised to hear that there are people who discriminate against immigrants simply for not knowing how to speak “proper” English. This creates inequality in the population, and looking at some of the examples in this text, contradicts the very freedom that they as citizens have been promised.

Tan describes her mother as a very smart person. “She reads the Forbes report, listens to Wall Street Week, converses daily with her stockbroker, reads all Shirley MacLaine’s books with ease,” these are all things that I feel describe an educated and intelligent person. Yet, because she is not able to converse these ideas in the best way, she is not given the credit she deserves. Sadly, people like to focus on the negatives rather than the positives.

Tan is forced to describe her mother’s English as “broken”, as if it is in desperate need of repair. She also dislikes the term ‘limited English’ because of the prejudices associated with the limited English speaker. The fact that Tan when she was younger believed that her mother’s English “reflected the quality of what she had to say,” and “because she expressed them imperfectly her thoughts were imperfect,”, you can only begin to imagine what other people perceived.

Thankfully, you don’t have to, because she tells you that “people in department stores, at banks, and at restaurants did not take her seriously, did not give her good service, pretended not to understand her, or even acted as if they did not hear her.” So, hearing this information, you might say to yourself ‘Well, this isn’t exactly stripping her of her rights,” which is understandable.

Being rude to a person, and stripping someone of their rights are two very different things. However, when you take that rudeness too far, it slowly starts to do so. There was an instance when Tan was fifteen and going to New York. Her mother wanted to cash out her portfolio. Two weeks go by, and her stockbroker still hasn’t sent her a check, meaning she is losing money. This means that Tan is forced to call the stockbroker, ‘translating’ her mother’s English. It was only then that it changed. Now, you might feel that this was just a simple misunderstanding, and that her stockbroker didn’t understand what was going on. Well, let me tell you about the CAT scan.

There had been a benign brain tumor found in her mother, and she wanted to find out about it. She used the best English she could, no mistakes. However, the hospital did not apologize when they lost the CAT scan, and had no sympathy when she told them that her husband and son had both died from the exact same brain tumors. It was only when again, they called her daughter in ‘perfect’ English that they finally did something about the problem.

If that does not open your eyes at the judgment and discrimination directed at second language English speakers, I am truly sorry for wasting your time, and I already know what kind of a person you are. Otherwise, I truly feel that the perception of people who speak ‘broken’ English must change, and I feel horrible that the only word I am able to use to describe it is ‘broken’. In all honesty though, it seems the only way to do so is if these people were to experience this first hand, by moving to a non-English speaking country. Only then, might things start to take a change for the better.