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Bryan Rodriguez 01/30/2019

While reading “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan, I realized that we both have some

similarities in terms of growing up listening to my mother’s imperfect English. Coming from a

Dominican family, obviously our main language is Spanish and very few of us from both my

mother and father side of the family tree hardly spoke English. My mother is the type to use her

“limited” English speaking abilities without no remorse as to whether she actually put the correct

words together to form a sentence. Tan described how exactly her mom spoke when

communicating with her. While Tan and I are from different parts of the world and of different

culture, I can sympathize with how she still was able to understand her mother’s limited English.

Every time my mother and I communicated in English I always understood her. It was our way

of speaking English. Even though I was going to school and learning new words and improving

my grammar, my mother can pick the words she would understand and relay her answer back to

the best of her abilities. While there were times her English sentences sounded incomplete, I

whole heartedly understood what she was trying to say one hundred percent of the time.

When Tan explained how she would be forced to speak as her mother because her

English was considered superior than her mother dearest, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

When my mom needed someone to convey a message for her through phone, email, or even in

person, she relied on me to represent her. The funny part about me representing her is that

depending on the case, I would catch myself jumping from our “broken” English to the “perfect”

English that needs to be spoken to who I am suppose to speak it to. My mother can be a bit nerve

wrecking at times and at times she would interrupt me while I am speaking to someone on her

behalf and so it becomes like flicking a light switch back and forth! “Broken” English for her

and then “perfect” for the personal banker at Chase Bank. Then back to her and then back to him
over and over again! It was like looking left and right at the same time. Tan touched on a few

other little things I can genuinely relate to. Tan understand the strain it takes to be able to

properly speak “perfect” for those who comes from other countries where English is not their

main language. This article was very insightful and there is no shadow of a doubt that this can be

labeled as an easy read. That is meant in the most respectful way. One thing is for sure that if my

mother is to ever reads Tan article “Mother Tongue”, she too, would give the same seal of

approval that Tan’s Mother gave to her, “So easy to read.”

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