This is a summary for Amy Tan's 'Mother Tongue'.

Imagine living in a country where you know you could die at any moment but don’t know how much longer till it happens. That was how much of the population of El Salvador used to feel when the government could not control the big coffee corporations. These out of control corporations, highly feared that the people would want to revolt against them so they hired murderers to kill innocent people to spread fear in the minds of the people of El Salvador. Fear, hate, and sorrow were the common feelings felt by the poor and innocent major population of El Salvador caused by the evil wrongdoings of the government during October 1979 – 16 January 1992. This is how the main character, Jose Luis, of the novel “Mother Tongue” by Demetria Martinez, felt before escaping his beautiful yet over constantly dangerous country, which depended on its cash crop, coffee beans to sell on a foreign market as the country’s main income. However, following the stock-market crash of 1929, a drop in coffee prices became apparent and affected everyone in El Salvador, but the poor especially. Making things worse, the glorious United States was funding the men whom were doing all the innocent killings with more weapons and money to increase their military power. So for Jose Luis the safe haven that he had escaped to was also blatantly funding the war that was killing so many innocent people he knew and had forced him to escape for his own safety. With nowhere else to go in order to find safety the United

4. Some specific situations where Tan says her mother’s “limited English” was a handicap is when her mother could not be able to talk directly with people, or would not be taken serious by the people she talked to.

The essays, "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan and "Public and Private Language" by Richard Rodriguez are recollections of both of the author’s personal encounters and difficulties with the gap that was created between their families by differences in languages. These two writers grew up with bilingual families, in which English was not the primary language. Consequently, they had a hard time accepting and understanding the issues surrounding the different languages they spoke with their families at home, and within society. Because of this, the gap between their public and private languages that had been created through the introduction of a second language slowly grew larger, and eventually impacted their relationships with their family and caused them to view them in a different light. In their writing, Both Tan and Rodriguez reflect on their personal experiences and memories and illuminate the effects that a private language can have on various aspects of life.

On the other hand the main focus on Tan’s story is to show the beautiful and passionate side of her mother that people can't see. Tan describes how all of the English’s that she grew up with, normal English and "mother tongue" English, has shaped her first outlook of life. She writes, "But to me, my mother's

Demetria Martínez’s Mother Tongue is divided into five sections and an epilogue. The first three parts of the text present Mary/ María’s, the narrator, recollection of the time when she was nineteen and met José Luis, a refuge from El Salvador, for the first time. The forth and fifth parts, chronologically, go back to her tragic experience when she was seven years old and then her trip to El Salvador with her son, the fruit of her romance with José Luis, twenty years after she met José Luis. And finally the epilogue consists a letter from José Luis to Mary/ María after her trip to El Salvador. The essay traces the development of Mother Tongue’s principal protagonists, María/ Mary. With a close reading of the text, I argue how the forth

This dialect, Tan says, became their "language of intimacy, a different sort of English that relates to family talk, the language [she] grew up with" (Tan 589). This type of language creates an identity for Tan, one which she was ashamed of growing up. This feeling of shame later backfired as an adult in her fiction writing. She wrote to prove she had "mastery over the English language" with large words, unheard of to the common ear, and sentences she thought were "wittily crafted." But as Tan matured, she realized she should envision an audience for her stories; this audience was her mother. She began to write stories using "all the Englishes" she grew up with. As she found out, this change of her own conception of language enriched her writing and added to her ethos. After all, her mother’s language, as she heard it, was "vivid, direct, full of observation and imagery." "That was the language that had helped shaper the way [she] saw things, expressed things, made sense of the world" (Tan 590). Her "mother tongue" is her identity as a writer, and she learned that someone’s English does not reflect the quality of what he/she has to say.

Dionysus is the God of wine, vegetation, pleasure, festivity, madness and wild frenzy. He has a thyrsus which is a staff of giant fennel covered with ivy vines and leaves, topped with a pine cone. He is the son of Zeus and princess Semele of Thebes. Before he could be naturally born, His mother Semele was tricked by Zeus’s wife, because of jealousy, to get killed accidentally by Zeus. He killed her with his lightning that he had struck her with. After Zeus had killed her, he recovered his son. He was worshiped between the time of 1500-100BC. He’s often referred to as Bacchus.

“We are a country where people of all backgrounds, all nations of origin, all languages, all religions, all races, can make a home. America was built by immigrants” Hillary Clinton stated. What she means in this quote is immigrants had a huge influence on America. America would be extremely different without them, without the diverse population here we would not know or be exposed to the different cultures, languages, and religions that we know today.

Tan was born to a pair of Chinese immigrants. Her mother understood English extremely well, but

Not all people whose English as a second language speak it in the same way. This argument made by Amy Tan in her story, “Mother Tongue”. In this essay, she successfully uses all three of Aristotle’s rhetorical styles such as ethos, logos, and pathos. Tan also notably balances each part of the rhetorical triangle and ultimately led to creating a very effective and thought provoking essay.

Amy Tan’s literacy narrative “Mother Tongue” is about the different dialects of English, she is familiar with. She explains that her intelligence is judged by the way she speaks. Amy Tan, explains memories from her life where she encounters many forms of English. Her mother, a Chinese immigrant spoke “broken English.” She describes her mother as someone who was able to understand English, well the mother claims that she understands everything, but when it came to speaking, she spoke without the correct grammar. Due to her mothers broken English, Amy Tan has adapted to the type of English her mother speaks, their own type of English language. Tan feels as if the English she is speaking with it outside world is more complex than the English she

Tan’s attitude towards her mother throughout the essay can be described as understanding yet embarrassed. Tan is understanding of her mother throughout the essay because she constantly says that her English differs when talking to her mom versus when talking to others. She does this because she knows her mom is not as well-spoken as others, but Tan still wants her mom to be comfortable speaking English with everyone. Tan even changes many things in later writings because she envisions her mother reading it, and wants to know that her mother will understand everything she puts into the writing even though she speaks “broken English.” Tan was also embarrassed of her mother in the essay because she speaks of times when Tan blamed her own mother

Amy Tan’s ,“Mother Tongue” and Maxine Kingston’s essay, “No Name Woman” represent a balance in cultures when obtaining an identity in American culture.  As first generation Chinese-Americans both Tan and Kingston faced many obstacles. Obstacles in language and appearance while balancing two cultures. Overcoming these obstacles that were faced and preserving heritage both women gained an identity as a successful American.

In the story Tan brought up how people in america could not fully understand her mother. “Yet some of my friends tell me they could understand 50 percent of what my mother says. Some say they understand 80 or 90 percent. Some say they understand none” (Tan 1013). The lack of understanding her friends had on her mother did show that americans only know their own mother tongue and this lead to problems for her mother. Tan brought up a few occurrences where she would have to pretend to be her mother while speaking so she would be treated right. “Then she began to talk more loudly. “What he want, I come to New York tell him front of his boss, you cheating me?’” (Tan 1014). Tan understood exactly what her mother said and had to translate it accordingly in order for her mother to get fair treatment. Another story Tan used another story that gave her purpose a very strong

The author realized that her mother’s form of English is one she automatically slips into when she is around her family, it is her “intimate” form of English. As Tan and her mother are looking in furniture stores and debating prices, she begins speaking to her mother using the “imperfect” English she grew up with. She states, “We are talking