Amy Tan Mother Tongue Analysis

Have you or someone you cared about ever been treated differently for not speaking correct English? Have you been insulted, looked down at, or even lied to? Well in Amy Tan’s story Mother Tongue her mother was looked down at for speaking “broken” English. For numerous occasions Amy had to speak for her mother because she couldn’t speak complete English and if Amy never spoke for her she would get treated differently. The theme of the story to me is that you should never be so quick to judge someone without knowing them first. After reading and analyzing the story Mother Tongue, the major theme of the story is don’t be so quick to judge someone. The reason why I found this theme to be accurate is because just of the simple fact that Amy’s mother spoke “broken” English, people thought she was stupid and treated her differently. One quote that shows proves this to be true is Amy saying “the fact 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.” (Tan 419). Here, Amy explains

This past summer I worked at SeaWorld in San Diego. I was a shows member, I would open up the gates to the stadiums and stand outside and help guests with any questions they had. As you know San Diego is a tourist city and we get people from all over the world that speak different languages. So whenever I noticed a group of guests walking towards me I would ask “How can I help you?” in either English or Spanish depending on whether they looked like they would speak a certain language. I learned that the embarrassing way. Sometimes I would start speaking in Spanish and it would turn out they speak English and they would say “English please” or vice versa. It happened to me numerous times and I final got the hang of it to just let them speak first and then I answer back in whichever language they