Amy Tan’s Mother Tongue, was a wonderful informative story that spotlighted the struggles of growing up with a parent who speaks “broken English”, and her experience with language and how people are perceived based off of how they speak. Through her writing, she educates the reader and gives them a new perspective on language. Amy kicks off her anecdote with an unexpected discovery she had had made during a speech she was giving. She was delivering a lengthy speech with fancy technical words when she realized her mother was in the room. And the way she was speaking was not the way her mother ever heard her speak. She felt strange and uncomfortable. Reading this made me think about the way I speak when I’m around different people. If I spoke to my parents the way I speak around my friends, they would shoot me questionable looks. I definitely have a filter that I put on around certain people. I’m not going to just randomly drop “F-bombs” around my parents and teachers. So I totally understand how Amy was feeling. 

The world looks at you and chooses whether or not they should take you seriously based off of the way you speak. Amy observed this all throughout her childhood. Watching countless times as her mother’s, complaints, words and wishes were ignored because of the way she sounded. People’s perception of Amy’s mother came all from the way she spoke. What she was actually trying to say did not even matter.  Amy had to go as far as getting on the phone for her mother and yelling at people . I really enjoyed reading this. It gave me some perspective and insight as well as some things to think about and reflect on.