

Change is a hard concept to understand for many people. The idea that something people have adapted to and based their lives around can change at any moment can be rather detrimental to a person’s sense of security. Yet it can be considered very courageous when people embrace change and seek it out for themselves in an attempt to better a situation, even if they aren’t sure of the outcome. So why is it that when different cultures try to mix no one seems to notice the courage and adaptability that was required? When foreign citizens come to the United States they are given very little respect and treated as unequal, all this while ignoring the courage it must have taken to move to a new and unknown place. In Amy Tan’s essay, “Mother Tongue”, Amy speaks of her experience and fascination with the English language and relates this to her first generation Chinese mother. These ideas of inequality and disrespect toward foreign citizens can be noted in “Mother Tongue” and better understood after looking to other pieces of literature. We can gain a higher level of validity if we consider the opinions of multiple sources speaking on these ideas of inequality and how it effects the nonnative youth. Examples from “The Identity Formation of American-Born Chinese in the 1930s: A Review of Lei Jieqiong’s (Kit King Louis) Master’s Thesis” by Haiming Liu and “Intergenerational Experiences of Discrimination in Chinese American Families: Influences of Socialization and Stress” by Aprile Benner and Su Yeong Kim can be used to analyze and better support Amy Tan’s ideas of discrimination and its effects in “Mother Tongue”. 

Countless books and short stories have been written in dedication to large historical events such as war and American cultural movements, but subtler situations in America tend to remain in the dark and away from harsh reticule. Regrettably in American history discrimination is an often occurring event no matter the size. These problems can be traced far back in time, but an account in the 1930’s can be used to demonstrate the injustice done to second generation Chinese citizens. Haiming Jui reviews a piece set around the struggles of a young Chinese man in the 1930’s in “The Identity Formation of American-Born Chinese in the 1930’s: A Review of Lei Jieqiong’s (Kit King Louis) Master’s Thesis.” Much like Amy Tan’s mother, a Chinese college student mentioned in Haiming Jui’s review experiences inequality and lack of respect among his new American patriots. The student was taken advantage of and not even considered for positions at any job interview. The fact that he was Chinese and spoke in a broken vernacular made him something of lesser value to employers. This young student experienced an entire new world coming to America by himself in the 1930’s with little to nothing to his name. No respect was given for this fact and no recognition for his courageous move made alone. The judgement of the Chinese American was based off of his ethnicity and accent. Nothing was taken for his actual ability. Knowing the time period that this story is taking place gives the inequality granted a slight excuse because America was experiencing racism in many places, yet when relating this story back to that of Amy Tan’s mother there no excuse in our modern day time period. This journal offers another account of the same type of disrespect toward nonnative American citizens in a different setting. Hearing stories of Amy Tan’s mother and how she couldn’t even receive proper medical assistance because of the way she speaks truly brings to light the discrimination problem in our culture during this day and age. Knowing that Amy had to speak on the phone to people of authority as a child not only displays lacking respect for her mother, but also creates a problem in the respect given to Amy. Respect is supposed to be given to authority figures like parents, but when you give a child more respect than a parent problems begin to arise.

In today’s society when a person possesses any level of authority there is a corresponding level of respect received. In a family parents are the authority figures and receive more respect from other people than their children receive. Yet when discrimination toward nonnative citizens come into play this isn’t necessarily the case. Studies of how second generation Chinese children are affected by discrimination acts toward their parents is explored in Aprile D. Benner and Su Yeoung Kim’s “Intergenerational Experiences of Discrimination in Chinese American Families: Influences of Socialization and Stress” and demonstrate the same situation that Amy Tan experienced with her mother. In the journal Benner and Kim explore the possibilities that discrimination toward Chinese parents might have on their children and goes on to state that, “the cultural value of filial piety only reinforces this connection between parents and children, encouraging the younger generation, regardless of age, to treat their elders with reverence and respect and look to them for guidance” (Benner, Kim 862). With this being said if a child looks up to their parents as a figure of authority that image could be disturbed when other people of authority treat Chinese parents with less respect than their children. Disturbing this balance of respect can change a child’s view of not only their parents but their own culture. In Amy Tan’s case, growing up having to watch her mother be disrespected because of her broken English changed the way she viewed her mother and gave her a sense of shame. Like many second generation Chinese Americans, “when [Amy] was growing up, [her] mother’s ‘limited’ English limited [her] perception of her. [She] was ashamed of her English” even though she knew her mother was intelligent (Tan 344). These acts of shifted respect truly can change the way a child interprets discrimination and can have effects on their developing knowledge and respect for their own culture. The article strengthens the statement Amy Tan makes in regards to losing respect for her mother by stating that this type of situation occurs with an abundance of second generation Chinese Americans. All of the aforementioned articles are written with the intent to expose the social guidelines that result in discrimination. Each contributes its own cultural views on discrimination which in the end amount to a negative connotation given to them by American society.  

Exploring further into discrimination toward Chinese culture and its effects on their children enhances the first-hand accounts shown in Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” and gives a second level of evidence to her statements. The experiences that Amy shares about her mother help back up the idea that nonnative Americans are treated with a belittled level of respect and therefore don’t get to experience the “American dream” that was advertised. It can be argued that Amy Tan wanted to bring to light these issues of discrimination by writing her speech. Haiming Liu’s journal gives more evidence into the debate of this issue by showing another example of the same discrimination in a different time period. While the young student in his story was judged and not considered fairly for jobs, in Amy Tan’s story her mother was not taken seriously when speaking to doctors about her lab results. In Benner and Kim’s article the effects of this discrimination are explored and bring validation to the feeling of shame that Amy Tan was feeling toward her mother’s English. From each of these perspectives it is evident that there is a still a problem recognizing courage in this country from anyone that is nonnative. 
