Importance of Reading and Writing

How powerful can the knowledge of a language be? I used to work at a diner that was owned by a Greek family. The suppliers would drop off the goods in the back and then come to the register to collect payment. I would hand them the correct amount, they would say thank-you and leave. When my bosses made the payments, however, things were very different. As soon as the supplier was spoken to in Greek, they would light up-the prices were all rounded down, and although the suppliers were not rude to me, they were especially nice to any of my bosses who spoke to them in their native language. Also, when the owners were spoken to by the customers, in Greek, their bills were either greatly reduced, or the meals were free. Frantz Fanon wrote a book called Black Skin, White Masks, and within the writing stated, “Mastery of language affords remarkable power” (18). Something as simple as different treatment due to a common language demonstrates how truly influential language can be. (Examples like these show how language can help to break down barriers.)

Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” is an autobiography of a girl who struggles with the many types of English used in America. Her writing portrays this when Tan recalled (after doctors misplaced her mother’s CAT scan, then called to talk to Amy Tan), “We had assurances the CAT scan would be found, promises that a conference call on Monday would be held, and apologies for any suffering my mother had gone through for a most regrettable mistake” (173). All the staff of the hospital needed was to talk to a person who spoke a type of English that was familiar to them. After that, many apologies were made and everything that had been wrong was fixed.

People are used to hearing languages spoken in certain ways. When someone speaks English in a manner that is not necessarily common, it is almost as if the listener rejects or denies it. Bich Minh Nguyen’s “The Good Immigrant Student” is about her childhood; how she came from another country and had great difficulty in understanding what was expected of her while in school. Nguyen recalled speaking what she thought at the time was perfectly normal English. However, when she tried to talk on the playground, all of the students mocked her, shouting, “Ching-chong, ching-chong!” (117). Nguyen spoke English just like the rest of the kids, but just because she said a few words and phrases differently, she was made fun of.

The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri, is the story of a Bengali family named the Gangulis who struggle with conforming to different cultures, and how they affect them as a family. Ashima, the mother in the family, has just given birth and is asked whether she wants a boy or a girl. Ashima responds, “As long as there are ten finger and ten toe” (7), not realizing her grammatical error. The nurse reacts by laughing in a way that almost mocks Ashima. She does not consider the fact that Ashima just had her first child and could have made the mistake due to exhaustion. The nurse assumed that Ashima had made the verbal error merely because she was from a different country and spoke another language natively.

The Ganguli family, in The Namesake, also felt that knowing their native language was a very important part of life. The mother and father spoke both their native language and English, and felt that their kids should be able to do the same. “When Gogol is in the third grade, they send him to Bengali language and culture lessons every other Saturday, held in the home of one of their friends” (65). Despite Gogol being enrolled in a drawing class on Saturdays, his parents felt that he needed to be educated in both Indian culture and language.