Mother Tongue

Amy Tan, the author of Mother Tongue, is a first generation American born Chinese. In this story she writes about the two different types of English that she speaks, the type she uses with her mother and the type she uses with everyone else. She also talks about how her mom gets screwed over with things by people just because she doesn't speak very good English. It's interesting how our society does things like that. We use people's disabilities against them. I know with my mom people always look and treat her different at first just because of the fact that she's in a wheelchair, but once they see how that doesn't define her they look at her like a normal person. Amy Tan is writing this for all the people that have to deal with the exact same things she does with her mom. There's the people with parents that don't speak much English as well as other people that have to act in a way as caretakers for people that can't do things for themselves. This story just reminds me of her book The Joy Luck Club because it has some very similar messages about knowing who you are as a person. Her purpose was to hopefully make people realize how they were treating others who are different.