Everyone does not have the choice to reside and grow up in their native countries. Humans have been forced to seek life possibility in non Native countries due to various reasons. However, Immigrating to a different country and the settlement there can be a very difficult process, as during this process you are forced to adapt to a completely new culture and language of the new country. In this case, Richard Rodriguez and Amy Tan talk about their experiences with Immigration and the effect of a new language and culture on their lives. Both Rodriguez and Tan emphasizes the importance of their family’s languages.
Adapting to the new culture can be very problematic and difficult. In the “Aria” by Richard Rodriguez. Rodriguez Describes his experience with immigration in the past. As a young spanish boy, Rudriguez immigrated to the U.S with his family. As he started school, Rudriguez found the English language challenging in School, because he only knew 50 words in English, Therefore he had a hard time communicating with people surrounding him at school. Rodriguez was timid and shy in school, Whenever Someone tried to speak to him, he would get tensed due to his poor Engilsh. However, with the support of the teachers, Rudriguez managed to learn English, which soon enough made Rodriguez Develop conflicting feelings. On one hand, knowing English made him feel like his attempt of blending in with the culture was successful, while on the other he overcame with a sense of being detached from his native home and a language. (Rodriguez, 30).
Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” describes the author’s observations about the English language. Tan was chinse by origin whose parents had immigrated to America. Though, she was exposed to broken Englinsh at home(spoken by her mother), the author when through various language training in school. Academically, Tan tended to be good at science subject. Teachers encouraged her to take pre-Medical at college. Although Tan was good at science, she was never interested in pursuing a career in science. Instead she interested to pursue a career in English language. Tan did not have difficulties in choosing what she wants to do, and what makes her happier. Therefore, by the first year of college she went ahead and left the pre-Medical course and completed her Major in English. Tan was enjoying writing non-fiction articles, but she started exploring more to that field and by 1985 she took to write English fiction. In her writings she expressed her willingness to learn this official language. She also explains how the language spoken at home can affect children in terms of training new language. Her mother’s poor English has affected her childhood (Tan 514-515).
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Richard Rodriguez being Spanish and Amy Tan, Chinese were both new to the English language at their respective schools. Throughout their lives, they both encountered difficulties in learning english. For Rodriguez, it was more of an attitude problem: he had a different approach to the English language, because he thought of English as a publish language. He looked at English like an outside language. He thought this way because English wasn’t the language he grew up speaking. He was used to speaking a different language at home (which is Spanish). Rodriguez emphasizes on why there should be a gap between home language (wish is Spanish),
And the “public language” (which is English). Learning English made developed a feeling of detachment to his home and his native language. One time in school Rodrigues displayed his uncooperative attitude when he was asked to speak aloud in English, but he chose to stay silent. Amy Tan’s approach to English was of a different nature. Unlike Rodriguez, she was quite optimistic towards learning the new language. Her achievement scores in English was decent. being in the sixtieth and seventieth percentile. However, she did face some difficulties in English grammar (Tan, 517). Tan had her differences from her classmates in school. Once she he was unable to choose the appropriate pair of semantic opposite words to complete a sentence. At another instance, when she had to select a pair of analogical words similar to given example, she was confused by the relation of the given pair of words. By time and with practice, she became comfortable in the use of English.
Though Rodrigue and Tan were not very familiar with English (since none of them were from English speaking background or family), their approach towards learning the new language was different. Rodriguez thought that English learning was a difficult process. At first he did not cooperate with his teachers in trying to learn the language. In the essay he admits that he would have preferred the teachers to speak in spanish to him (Rodriguez, 30). In contras, Tan did not have problems in learning the new language. Therefore, she tried her best and undertook all the language training at school. Though she admits she had encountered some difficulties at the beginning, she gradually interest for the subject. Rodriguez can be said to have possessed a mental block towards the learning of English, which was not the case with Tan. However Rodriguez later on understood that he had the wrong approach to the language. He understood that speaking only Spanish might postpone children’s entry into public life (Rodriguez, 30).
In conclusion one may say that when persons hailing from different backgrounds, migrate to a new location, they are forced to encounter difficulties in trying to adapt themselves to the culture, language, and traditions of that place. This fact is clearly recognizable in the writings of Richard Rodriguez and Amy Tan. The difficulties that they had encountered in trying to learn the English language, their fears and anxiety all makes it understandable that adapting to a different culture requires enormous amount of efert. Finally they both realize sooner or later that learning the public language is extremely important. Probably, the authors were unconsciously aided by the fact that both of them were in their formative years (Tan, 514).
References
- Rodriguez, R. (1980), Aria: a memoir of a bilingual childhood, Education
- Tan, A. (1990), “Mother Tongue”, In Williford, L. and M. Martone, Touchstone
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