Immigrants

In "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan, the dilemma of living as a Chinese immigrant is extensively portrayed, as Amy's mother faces difficulties in terms of acclimatizing to America's English language, which led to negative responses from society. In reality, it is common that when one's family settles into a new country, in which they are unaccustomed to, they must endure the frantic process of learning and absorbing the traditional language, which in this case is English.  This may comfort them afterwards, through feeling welcomed by society and blending in with everyone else. Amy's mother did learn the English language successfully in her point of view, yet chooses to use her own words and her own way of speaking, which the American society considers to be "broken". This unfortunately resulted in people taking advantage of her, thus causing Amy to take in charge of some of the upsetting situations. Amy uses her fluent English language and her mother's "broken" language to display society's response towards the use of different "Englishes".

Personally, I believe that these inhumane people had no right to mistreat her or single her out, and have no right to mistreat anyone else according to their English usage. Amy's mother should be respected, as she is a grown woman with a great mind. In fact, these coldhearted people should be understanding and cooperative in order to escalate her confidence in speaking English, and so that she feels no different from everyone else. Since they are American, and representing their people and country, treating immigrants that way displays their lack of hospitality, as Amy and her mother, as well as the rest of the immigrants in America, are considered to be their guests. It would be the same if an American immigrates to China, and the Chinese took advantage of his/her lack of fluency in the Chinese language. In actual fact, this entire story very much applies to my mother and I, but is the exact opposite, as my mother's "broken" English was accepted. When my family immigrated to Canada five years ago, I was very fluent in English, as I have been learning it since the early years of my childhood. However my mother on the other hand, was very hesitant towards the English language, and therefore decided to attend "English school" in Canada. She was very determined in learning English, and she successfully did. But she did face similar problems to Amy's mother in terms of speaking it, as it was also "broken". However, never once in those four years did she encounter people taking advantage of her, or judging her way of speaking. Actually, whenever she would be talking to someone over the phone or face to face, she always informs them beforehand that her language isn’t very good. But really they would respond: "Oh no no, don’t worry it is actually very good. I understand everything. Please continue…" This in fact, increased her confidence and fluency in English, and only made her better.

Therefore, when learning a new language in a new country, it should be very encouraging and educational, rather than stressful or embarrassing, to make their living conditions much comfortable. In terms of the American society, they considered language not only a tool of communication, but a sociological tool of measuring individual worth, which in my opinion is very frustrating towards the non-native speakers, as they should be treated equally to those that are native speaking.