Personal Experience Essay/mother tongue by Amy Tan

I chose this text because out of all of the text that we have read in class this was the one that I felt connected to and can correlate it with my own personal experience. Based on the text Amy tan showed her mother’s level of english and her inability to express herself in English. She also showed how her mother’s language has influenced her academically and socially. Even though Amy tan was chinese American, this is a text that every child coming from a minority household can relate to. I made my emphasis on the time when Amy’s mother went to the hospital but based on her lack of English and struggling to Express herself the doctors and the nurses did not even take her serseriou as compared to where amy intervened. They showed Amy more respect ,apologized and assured her that the cat scan will be found soon. This clearly show that people are treated some kind of way when they can’t Express themselves in perfect English. People turn to avoid them regardless of their age or ethnic group. The text is a typical example, they showed amy more respect than her mother. I have experienced similar situation with my mother and sister. We moved from Africa to reside with my father in the United states. Unfortunately my mother waa not familiar with the English language so my sister was forced to move around with my mother whenever she has an appointment and orientation. She always said she wish she had her education before moving to the United states. We clearly understand where she was coming from because she lost her parents at a very young age so she was  introduced into trade and traveling in other to support herself. She later moved to her elder sister’s house but still didn’t get the opportunity to study in school. She gets very emotional every time she shares her childhood stories with us . My sister receives all her business and professional calls. Recently she came up with the idea of speaking English at home so that she can learn from us. We started speaking English at home and corrected her everytime she made a mistakes.  We became her personal teacher and taught her how to read.  During the past few years  , we have experienced some growth in her vocabulary and her level of confidence. She now goes outside by herself without my sister assisting her in applications or appointments also she seems happier whenever she goes outside to even purchase an item at at our local deli. In the past few years she felt intimidated whenever someone approached us with English. She was always shy and avoided contact with people. Surprisingly we realized that she can remember things for along period of time.  She learns very fast and always pressure us to teach her something new.

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