This week in class I focused on writing an essay based on Mother Tongue by Amy Tan. For those who have never read Mother Tongue, the short narrative is about a girl growing up with a mother that does not speak proper English, she speaks what we would call "broken" English. In my essay I focused on the fact that American society being obsessed with perfection and not really accepting someone that does speak English. I personally think that American society judges people unfair when the speak broken English, because society tends to think that people that speak broken English are lower class and are not as smart as others. I think that we should stop judging people based on their English and recognize that English is not everyone's first language, and others may be proficient at speaking another language. At the end of the day English is not America's official language. If it was then Mandarin and Spanish could not be on the voting ballot.
I also wrote my essay on Mother Tongue. I think that you take on American society being profectionists was really interesting and a good take on why there were so many problems with the way her mother spoke english. I also notice that the way that you speak english determines what social class people think that you come from. But it is wierd because if you come from a different country say France and have a french accent when speaking English it doesn't necissarly mean that you are from a lower class in fact it could mean your from a higher class but if you come from a poorer country and speak broken English that means that you are probablu lower class. My point is that it depends where your accent is from and whether or not your country is rich or poor.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you one hundred percent! i think that even though there are a lot of people in america that dont speak proper english are automatically judged and thought of as no being smart, or not american. When in reality thats not the case many people are smart but either have a strong accent or simply cant speak proper english, however that doesnt make them dumb or stuoid.I think i should have wrote about this essay better since i can relate to it more.
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