Summary Of Mother Tongue By Amy Tan

Literature creates an illusion of who belongs and who does not belong to America. Readers are able see this concept being displayed in “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan. Throughout her essay, her audience repeatedly sees her expressing how she uses different languages, each language she uses is meant for different settings. “My mother was in the room. And it was perhaps the first time she had heard me give a lengthy speech, using the kind of English I had never used with her.” When Amy Tan gave this speech to her mom she pictured that the audience in the room were Americans. While giving this speech she noticed that she used bigger words, more carefully thought out sentences, and a much more sophisticated tone. If Amy were just talking to her mother

She felt that if she wanted to have a voice that people would listen to, she would have to live up to the American stereotypes and even exceed them. If she didn’t become one of them, she was just another unnoticed face. Amy Tan also talks about her mom and how the language her mother spoke, the one she once loved, makes her feel ashamed. “I know this for a fact, because when I was growing up, my mother’s “limited” English limited my perception of her. I was ashamed of her English” Amy Tan had this image of in her mind of what an American should be and anyone who failed to meet that criteria she assumed they were lacking intelligence. That is how she felt about her mom. She even uses the word “ashamed” to emphasize the negativity she feels toward her mother’s communication skills. She strongly believed that the language one spoke depicted their intellect. Her mother spoke broken English and she had an accent which could be seen as someone who is less educated. According to Amy no poor language is equivalent to not being

In his poem, he does not exclude anyone. His poem is his personal definition of who belongs to America. “The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck, The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands” One similarity about all the people mentioned in this poem is that they all are a part of the working class. Whitman refrains from using the color of skin or intellect to decide who America is and who belongs there. Instead, by using all the titles of workers, he implies that the everyone who works has helped to build America and therefore they belong to America. The poem celebrates every individual that has done something to impact America. Although Whitman’s poem is very diverse in the sense that everyone who has done something is recognized, he does disregard one group of people. Those people include the wealthy, the entrepreneurs, leaders, and anyone that is not a part of the working class. He does this to focus on those who have all worked toward the common goal of creating America and typically those who have achieved that status are no longer working people. It be concluded that Walt does not think that people who no longer work belong to America. Langston Hughs references “I hear America singing” in his poem titled “I too”. Hughs, however takes a different approach on who