Summary Of A Memoir Of A Bilingual Childhood

After reading A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” by Richard Rodriguez, and “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan, I found that being bicultural is one of the best qualities I could have. Speaking two languages, eating different kinds of foods, and celebrating my culture are some of the advantages of being bicultural. Although my family and I live in the U.S we follow the customs and traditions of America and Pakistan. I have learned to speak three languages, including English. I eat a variety of foods and celebrate different holidays that have to do with my religion and culture. It is very fun when I get to interact with people of my nationality and speak to them in a different language. It is also a benefit because I get to celebrate with all my family
This is important because a shared cultural understanding will allow us to be more comfortable in our own culture and to adapt to the expectations of others. This process is experienced as a personal journey to recover and stabilize with one’s own identity. Consequently, resolution is the outcome. When individuals become bicultural they can learn to adapt to and cope with their environment and to the larger society in which they live. Yet, as they strive to maintain their own ethnic identity to keep their traditions and cultural beliefs as a legacy to pass on from one generation to another, they must negotiate new and ever-changing values and beliefs and
They have the stereotype about international students, especially from Africa because they think I do not know anything about life here. Many people have stereotypes about Africa as being like a jungle or safari with lions and that people live in huts and that they’re all starving. By reading through Tan’s essay I found that how she complains that how her literacy on the English language was affected by the obstacles that she had to encounter of how others were judging her and her mom. People were telling her how her English was not as valuable because her knowledge came from her mother, a second language speaker. In other words, she was pushing against what she was going against. People were telling her that her English was simple but simple English is not the same as being simple minded. Tan gives an example of how her teachers were stereotyping her by telling her to focus on her math and sciences rather than on English. All of these struggles were obstacles that she had to overcome to become an