Amy Tans's Short Story Mother Tongue

Limited English

In Amy Tans's short store "Mother Tongue", readers are introduced to Tan who is the

daughter of a Chinese immigrant mother. While in school, Tan always excelled in mathematics

and science, but felt she had a disadvantage with English and Literature. This disadvantage was

caused because her limited English she had to use with her mother. As a young girl growing up

Tan was embarrassed because of her mothers poor English "I know this for a fact, because when

I was growing up, my mothers limited English limited my perception of her" (Tan, pg#70). As

time went on Amy accepted her mothers "broken"English and grew to dislike the term "limited

English". Do people judge others based on their inability to speak perfect English? Should one

be required to speak the dominate language of a certain country once they migrate to that

country?

Amy Tan's perception of "limited" English is not a good perception. Tan feels that one

should not be judged because that person is not flaunt in English. Tan feels that the way one

speaks does not perceive ones educational status or how smart that person is. Tans mother is

able to read magazines such as Forbes, but she is still being perceived as someone with lesser

value "My mother has long realized the limitation of her English as well...I was forced to ask for

information or even complain and yell at people who had been rude to her." (Tan,pg#70) People

should not be perceived as anything less due to the fact that their English is not as good as a

person who speaks fluently in English. Tan also feels that her mother was never taken seriously

due to her mothers "limited" English. Not even Tan's mothers doctor took her seriously. Tan's mother had a doctors appointment to get CAT scans back of her brain to see if there were any

tumors. Unfortunately, the CAT scans were lost. Tans mother was left without any help. Tans

mother demanded for the doctor to contact her daughter. Since Tan spoke in an English that was

more understandable to the doctor the doctor then was willing to help "When the doctor finally

called her daughter, me, who spoke in perfect English...we had assurance the CAT scan would

be found promised that a conference call on Monday