Mother Tongue Analysis

The use of language determines how one identifies himself/herself and how others identify certain groups of people, but what happens whenever a certain group’s language doesn’t meet the “standards” of the usual American way of using language? Many problems arise. The authors, Amy Tan, who wrote “Mother Tongue”, Gloria Anzaldua, who wrote “How to Tame a Wild tongue”, and David Sedaris, who wrote “Me talk pretty one day”, all support a common argument that shows the linkage of identity and language. Because language is both part of identity and used to convey identity, ridiculing language use can be offensive to both individuals and their culture, which is the root of larger societal discrimination.
Language determines how people identify themselves
People that don’t speak the native language of a certain area are often discriminated based off their language which reflects their culture. Just by insulting their language, that is basically disparaging that person’s culture. Anzaldua expresses the linkage between ridiculing language and how it reflects badly on her culture by saying, “[s]o, if you want to really hurt me, talk badly about my language. Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity” (Anzaldua 2951). The previous quote shows that when you offend someone’s language, you are affronting them not only as an individual but also their culture. Another way that can change how a culture is perceived is by people making simple judgements of people not in that culture. In Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue”, she mentions since no one completely understands her mother, judgments are made about her which can lead to a negative view on her culture (Tan 292). It is quite noticeable that these small judgements of her language have a large affect on how she is viewed as an individual and as her culture as a whole. These small things including how judging individuals and groups of people based off of their language can change the way a culture is viewed. These small things eventually add up, which can cause bigger problems to arise that leads to discrimination within our
Just by trying to correct the teacher, so that her name was pronounced right, it caused the teacher to react in a way that was not necessary. In our society, we are not very open to different people and their cultures in many different circumstances. One of these incidents is when it comes to the education system. When learning in school, other cultures aren’t pushed as much to succeed in English because their speech is considered “broken”, so they are just pushed in what they are good at like mathematics (Tan 294). The preceding quote validates a divide between cultures. For example, what if a Chinese person had a really good sense of telling stories, but didn’t get the opportunity to succeed in English? It leads to a type of discrimination that is limiting people of many opportunities. Even though Tan was rebellious, and became an English major, some might not be that willing to throw themselves into an uncomfortable