The Bonesetter's Daughter, And Saving Fish Form Drowning

Language and Culture A good portion of Americans today speak English as their first language. However, what makes us different is that it is rare to find two people that speak the exact same English. This is the argument Amy Tan makes in her story “Mother Tongue.” She shares her personal story of the English she speaks, and how much the people you are around can change the way you converse. Born in the United States to immigrant parents from China, Amy Tan failed her mother’s expectations that she become a doctor and concert pianist. She settled for writing fiction. Her novels are The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God’s Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, The Bonesetter’s Daughter, and Saving Fish Form Drowning, all New York Times
Tan also discusses stereotypes and lack of respect brought on by her ethnic background and the struggles brought about by being Asian in America. She explains communication problems between her and her mother although they were very close. She constantly had to be the translator for her mother, which was embarrassing for Tan. She felt the world thought her mother was inferior because she could not speak English well, though her mother was an intelligent being. And the set backs faced because of these communication problems that her family had with the rest of society. While at home, Tan speaks to her mother in a “broken” sort of choppy English that she can understand. When she is talking to people she works with or deals with on a more business-oriented basis, she uses clearly spoken, grammatically correct, standard English. It was not until giving a speech in a room that her mother was a part of that she finally realized how different her two forms of English really
In reality her mother's language is more vivid and imaginary than anyone else's. Throughout the essay Tan becomes more and more accepted towards her mother's vocabulary because of the other ways she shows her intelligence. For example, she said that her mother reads the “Forbes report, listens to Wall Street Week, converses daily with her stockbroker, and reads all of Shirley MacLaine's books with ease.” When Amy Tan talks about the language tests she said that in math there is only one correct answer and language tests are more of a judgment call. Tan did not do as well in English class as she did in math and science in school. All of the tests told her the same thing. Yet Tan was determined to write. She pondered the idea of why Asians were more successful in a career of engineering than writing and came to the conclusion that maybe those children growing up at home were in the same situation that she