Mother Tongue and When I was PR – Jonathan

“I know this for a fact, because when I was growing up, my mother’s “limited” English limited my perception of her. I was ashamed of her English. I believed that her English reflected the quality of what she had to say. That is, because she expressed them imperfectly her thoughts were imperfect.

“Mother Tongue” paragraph 8

I think this quote from “Mother Tongue” is the most significant quote in the next as it indicates two struggles in the writers life. First the fact that she feels different and isolated. Her mothers way of speaking has indirectly caused her to feel alienated in society. The text had stated before that some people can only understand 50% of what her mother is saying while others cant understand at all. Yet despite that she can understand her mother perfectly. But when they in public is evident that no one else can understand her “imperfect” thoughts. The second struggle lies with her perception of her own mother and possibly others around her. I think she states ” I was ashamed of her English” to express not necessarily that she was ashamed of the way her mother said things but rather that her mother could not convey her true thoughts. Meaning that, even her mothers daughter might not have the right “perception” of her mother. She shows this by saying ” her English reflected the quality of what she wanted to say”.

“I walked down the black-tiled hallway, past many doors that were half
glass, each one labeled with a room number in neat black lettering. Other
students stared at me, tried to get my attention, or pointedly ignored me.
I kept walking as if I knew where I was going, heading for the sign that
said stairs with an arrow pointing up. When I reached the end of the hall
and looked back, Mami was still standing at the front door watching me,
a worried expression on her face.” –“All of a sudden, I was afraid that I was about to make a fool of myself and end up in seventh grade in the middle of the school year.”

“When I was Puerto Rican” page 102, line 22

This quote is what I consider to be the most important quote in the text. This quote sets the scenery probably not as it actually was, but rather as how the writer saw the situation. As you can imagine if you were in a foreign place with foreign people, you would see the scenery different that if you were in that same place with people you accustomed to. That is why she says the hallway was “black-tiled”, to indicate she was looking at the ground because she was insecure despite her bravado earlier. After this she points out the people. All the other students have put her at the center of attention, making it clear to her she is the one who is alone. To top it off her own mother who was so proud of her a few moments earlier, was now looking at her with worry. She sums it all up with the sentence “All of a sudden, I was afraid that I was about to make a fool of myself and end up in seventh grade in the middle of the school year.” The same person who made a bet with a teacher with confidence was now not sure she could pull through only by walking to a staircase. Despite that she pulled through and then some. This quote is the quote that shows the most of hardships and despite that she overcame them.

VOCAB

Wrought (adjective)- Crafted or created in a specific way

“”The intersection of memory upon imagination” and “There is an aspect of my fiction that relates to thus-and-thus’–a speech filled with carefully wrought grammatical phrases, burdened, it suddenly seemed to me, with nominalized forms, past perfect tenses, conditional phrases, all the forms of standard English that I had learned in school and through books, the forms of English I did not use at home with my mother.”

Nominalize (verb) – to convert into a noun

“”The intersection of memory upon imagination” and “There is an aspect of my fiction that relates to thus-and-thus’–a speech filled with carefully wrought grammatical phrases, burdened, it suddenly seemed to me, with nominalized forms, past perfect tenses, conditional phrases, all the forms of standard English that I had learned in school and through books, the forms of English I did not use at home with my mother.”

Guise (noun)- a manner of presentation

“In this guise, I was forced to ask for information or even to complain and yell at people who had been rude to her”

Uproariously (adverb)- in a noisy way with a lot of laughing/shouting

“I kicked myself with the back of my right shoe, much to the surprise of the fellow walking behind me, who laughed uproariously, as if I had meant it as a joke.”

Subsequent (adjective)- come after something (moving in increments)

“We were outcasts in a school where the smartest eighth graders were in the 8–1 homeroom, each subsequent drop in number indicating one notch less smart.”

Preposition (noun)- A word governing usually preceding a noun or pronoun

“In her class, I learned to recognize the structure of the English language, and to draft the parts of a sentence by the position of words relative to pronouns and prepositions without knowing exactly what the whole thing meant.”