Several days ago, I went to People’s Forum on West 37th Street and watched a multilingual show named Somos Más (it means We are more in English). The story happened in a dystopian nation where all people were forced to assimilate, and six intergenerational immigrants united secretly to plan a revolution, fighting against assimilation, race inequality, and the idea of supreme culture and identity. Feeling deeply touched by the performance composed of six languages, I started to wonder the role and the power of words. When immigrants from other nations come to America, they all will go through a hard process of adjusting themselves to a new linguistic communication. During this long journey, they will face the “tradeoff” between individualities and public identities, having to picking one side and incurring the loss of the other side. However, with new developed public characteristics and changed private roles, they will then come to realize the power of language.
In “Mother Tongue”, the author Amy Tan recalls all types of English that she used in order to communicate with different groups of people, the main conversations with her mom, and obstacles her mom faced as a result of “broken English”. In “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood”, the author Richard Rodriguez describes the troublesome process of learning English, the following changes that happened within his life after mastering English successfully, and his inner growth led by the love from his Mexican family. Through telling stories about their families and linguistic communication barriers that they encountered, both authors reflect on their past experiences of growing up as foreign children within the American society and their ways of adjusting personalities, illustrating the connections between language and identities. However, Amy strives to not only build a bridge between American and Chinese culture but also break the existing stereotype and prejudices for Asian people, while Richard tends to stand against bilingual education and partly accentuate public belongingness and role of assimilation.
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Both authors effectively utilize personal anecdotes to express their argument that private languages have two influences: improving family intimacy and limiting public identity development. In “Mother Tongue”, Amy first recounts one of her recent lengthy speeches to a large group of people and points out that the talk was addressed by applying “carefully wrought grammar phrases” (448) which belonged to standard English that she learned in school and through textbooks. In her words, she used “the forms of English that [she] did not use at home with [her] mom” (448). The fact that she suddenly realized that something was wrong with her speech when she saw her mom makes audience clear that there existed an inerasable difference between standard English and the type of English she used with her mom. Even though she could speak perfect English, her mom would have trouble understanding what she was talking about. Also, she mentions that when her mom said that “not waste money that way” (448), even her husband could understand and did not notice any change in her way of speaking English. And after spending twenty years together, he sometimes would talk in that broken English. Then in the next paragraph, she adopts a sharp contrast between her friends and her—only she could understand one hundred percent of her mom’s words—to conclude her proudness of being impacted under unique broken English. These facts strongly indicate that the private language that people only use within their families can tight personal relationship and bond intimate individuals much closer. Later on, she continues to admit that her mother’s broken language indeed had some unpleasant influences on her life. In her words, “[she thinks her mother’s English almost had an effect on limiting [her] possibilities in life” (450). Specifically, she says that “compared to math, English could not be considered as [her] strong suit” (451), and she gives several examples of English tests that she never did well on, and obviously, her ways of approaching these questions were based on her mother’s fragmented English. Hence, she claims that while the private language improves the intimacy among family members and helps build personal identity, it indeed has somewhat negatively affected belongingness and performance in public.
In “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood”, Richard recounts many childhood stories in detail, showing the pleasure occasions of talking Spanish at home—including inventing Spanglish words—and nervous thoughts aroused by the voice of gringos—especially at class when he was forced to answer questions. According to him, Spanis is the media that assured him, making him feel that “[he] is home now. inside” (381), while English-speakers’ voices were much harder than his parents’ voices. Then, he goes on to describe a moment when all his families, began to speak English at home in order to let his siblings and he speak English at school. However, after he began to be Americanized and did well in school, “tragedy” happened, since “as [they] began to learn more and more English, [they] shared fewer and fewer words with [their] parents” (386), making their home become silent. Through the following changes occurred in his family, he convinces readers that while immigrants begin to accommodate themselves to a strange civilization, their own or original personalities may melt away, and their private intimacy may be estranged by every progress they achieve publicly.
Despite of the almost identical arguments towards the relations between the language people speak and identities they develop, it turns out that Amy Tan and Richard Rodriguez actually focus on different themes, and their perspectives approaching the power of language are also in contrast. Growing up in an awkward childhood and constantly wondering about the loss in intimacy and the gain in public life, Richard claims that bilingual education actually disrupts the purpose of public education itself and instead creates separateness in community, as he was a “victim to a disabling confusion” (390). In the early part of his essay, although he elaborates on the familial joy and comfort created by speaking Spanish at home, he still points out that “it is not healthy to distinguish public words from private words so easily”(384), because he was “timid and shy in public, too dependent on voices at home” (384). In return, his family almost had no visitors, and he could feel his identity only at home. Then in his second part of story, he describes that even though bilingualists highly praise the merits of addressing classes in students’ private language in order to foster their learning process, he felt lucky that his teachers were not as sentimental as suggested. As he said, “[he] wrongly imagined that English was intrinsically a public language and Spanish an intrinsically a private one” (387), and he refused to participate in public life. If his teachers, rather than talk to his parents about his issue of English speaking, allowed him not to speak English, he would never have his turning point of life—practicing English even at home—and would never fit in the outside society. Using his own growing up story as a counter example, he persuasively proves the ineffectiveness of bilingual education. Also, while he made progress in accommodating into a new type of linguistic communication, he tended to forget his original Spanish. To illustrate, “after English became [his] primary language, [he] no longer knew what words to use in addressing [his] parents” (386). And then, he continues to recall how his family changed from noisy to silent and how his relatives teased him because of his influent Spanish, presenting the cruel fact that it is impossible for one individual to achieve public success without any diminishment in private intimacy. Thus, he further defeats the idea that “children permitted to use their family language in school will not be so alienated and will be better able to match the progress of English-speaking children” (395). In words, he persuades his readers that bilingual education indeed blurs its intention of bridging the gap between non-English-speaking children and native children.
By contrast, in “Mother Tongue”, Amy concentrates on expressing the opinion that people should not judge or have any prejudices towards others based on languages used. To be more specific, she provides many unpleasant experiences that her mom encountered because of her fragmented English throughout the essay, such as not being understood by Amy’s friend and not receiving any apologies and regrets in hospital. By listing these examples, she points out that American people consider immigrants who could not speak fluent English as weird and fragmented, and everything those people possess, including their minds, were limited by their language as well. However, she explains her disapproval of this opinion by saying that what her mom really understands lies below her language, since she could “read Forbes Report, listen to Wall Street Week, converse daily with her stockbrocker, read all of Shirley MacLaine’s books with ease”(449). Then, she continues to provide a dialogue happened between her mom and the stockbrocker. He ignored her mom and tried to cheat on her, and obviously, he thought her mom could not be capable of communicating with his manager to explain what happened. His action of looking down on her mom further implies the idea of prejudices caused by imperfect English. From showing this experience of her mom, she claims that there exists no difference between people who can speak impeccable English and people—such as her mom—who speak “impeccable broken English”(450), and everyone has the right to get what they deserve, regardless of money or respect.
Except for holding different themes, both authors work on unique ways of emotional sublimation. In “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Education”, perceiving the intimacy still existing among their families in an English-sounding house, Richard puts forward his argument that “intimacy is not created by a particular language; it is created by intimates” (398). To illustrate, even though his Spanish speaking, or his family language, is no longer fluent, he is still the son of his mom, and his family and he are still together. The reason of making progress in becoming a more successful student in school and a more active citizen in American society is that he overcame the linguistic barrier and began to get in touch with the world. His private intimacy did not diminish because of the language he talked, but on top of his private identity, he developed his public personalities and was then recognized by American civilization. In other words, “the great change in [his] life was not linguistic but social” (398). In the last part of his essay, he recalls that although his grandma, a woman of Mexico, had no interest in gringo world and mocked at him after he stopped speaking Spanish, she loved him deeply and most. However, as he points out, “then it made no difference. [Their] relationship continued. Language was never its source.” (396) Specifically, at first, he felt sorry for his families about the silence in his house, then he figured out that actually the love did not change but remained even deeper. Therefore, what he expresses is that language is not the factor of being intimate, and there is no need to utter family language in public crowds simply to reserve so-called intimacy in private life. The true way to stay intimate is keep relationship with intimate people in one’s special identity. In his words, “intimacy is not trapped within words. It passed through words” (398). This is the power of language in Richard’s perspective.
While in “Mother Tongue”, Amy strives to break the general opinion about Asian people from American’s perspective. Although her mom’s words could not be understood by others, she felt proud of what her mom said, and she loved listening to her mom, as she pointed out “[her mother’s] language, as [she hears] it, is vivid, direct, full of observation and imagery. That was the language that helped shape the way [she] saw things, expressed things, and made sense of the world” (449). There is no difference between the mind of Americans and that of her mom, and according to Amy, her mother’s view of things and knowledge exceeded a lot of English-speaking people. Also, in this essay, Amy retells her writing career, including her English learning process in early years and how she ultimately went on this profession. She states that a lot of Asian students may also speak broken language, and that is the reason why their teachers “steer them away from writing into Math and Science” (452). However, her experience of majoring in English and continuing writing serves as a perfect counter example of such wrong stereotype for Asian people. She shows that the way she made breakthroughs is also possible for other who have the same background as hers, and Americans cannot judge Asians because of their language or apperance. Every individual owns their unique identity, and all those identities compose of the current world. In Amy’s point of view, the power of language stands beyond the type of language itself, instead exists in expressing one’s ideas well clear to others and let people who are hearing understand perfectly.
To sum up, in “Mother Tongue” and “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood”, both authors recount their growing up stories of being foreign children under a strange American civilization. Without being guided by perfect English at home, they admitted that it partly affected their public performance and hinders their identity development in society, as they were ignored and judged by English-speakers. However, fortunately, through learning English and trying to step out of their comfort zones, not only did they preserve their existing identity at home, but they began to become special in public life. Amy—originally came from an Asian family—starts writing career in English world, while Richard—growing up in a Mexico family—accommodates into American society and stands for a foremost Chicano voice as an essayist. Yet, there exist sharp differences between them. For one thing, they pay attention to particular themes; Amy tries to break stereotypes of Asian people from American perspectives, while Richard claims against bilingual education. For another thing, they approach the power of language in different aspects; Amy states that the power of language is to express oneself beyond the type of words, while from Richard’s perspective, the power of language is to help build public identity and fit into a new civilization.
Work Cited
- Samuel, Cohen, editor. “Fifty Essays: A Portable Anthology.” 5th, Bedford, Freeman, and Worth High School publishers, 2017.
- Tan, Amy. “Mother Tongue.” Cohen, pp. 447-453
- Rodriguez, Richard. “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood.” Cohen, pp. 377-399.
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