Mother Tongue Response

This story showed how much different you can be treated according to the “level” of English you are able to speak. Since the author’s mother couldn’t really speak great English, she was treated differently by the people that she came into contact to or had to deal with. The author, Amy Tan, had to make business calls for her mother and also talk to people if they happened to go to eat somewhere because people simply didn’t take her mother seriously. It’s not really fair for others to judge someone by the way they talk. It seems as if Tan’s mother had grown up always speaking Chinese, and having to change over to English would be a very hard thing to do. The author explains how teachers persuaded her to take on careers in math or science rather than English. Tan goes with her own instinct and majored in English her first year of college. She was breaking the “stereotype”. When she got older she realized that she talks at a different level of English when she’s speaking to a big crowd compared to just speaking to her family. I think that all of us talk differently depending on the type of people we happen to be around. It was interesting to hear her story on how important speaking English can be and how it effects you.