“Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan was written in 1989 explaining the struggles that her family, specifically her mother has gone through as she immigrated to American. The main issues that Tan focuses on throughout the essay is the language barrier that comes along with immigrating to another country. Specifically, the hardships that are encountered while trying to speak and understand the English language. Tan’s mother immigrated from China to the United States before Tan herself was born. While being in this country her mother has learned English to the best of her ability. But after speaking her native language for so long in her home country of China it is difficult for her to learn every single word of the English language. 

 Tan’s mother has learned the words that people use often in conversation. With the words, she does know she combines those to form sentences that Tan describes as being “broke” meaning she speaks a combination of English and Chinese. Tan goes on to say that she is able to understand her mother’s ‘broken’ way of talking, however others who are not around her a lot of the time have a very difficult time understanding her, for instance “some of my [Tan] friends tell me they understand 50 percent of what my mother says. Some say they understand 80 to 90 percent.” (343). This has everything to do with people’s ability to adjust from the social norm of the English Language. The English language would not have different ‘sub-languages’ if it were not for those people who spoke in what Tan would call ‘broken’ English. Most if not all of these people have come too American after speaking a different language for their entire life.  Tan’s essay titled “Mother Tongue” relates directly to immigration within the United States because each immigrant that has accessed the country has brought their own ‘English’, these people must adjust to the country and eventually they must feel accepted in the country. 

Tan’s mother a Chinese immigrant who came to America. Along with bringing her personal belongings she also traveled around the world with her native language. Since her main language is Chinese she was coming to a country that did not use her language. However, she was not on her own when she finally arrived at her destination, according to Migration Policy Institute “The 1890 decennial census reports a Chinese-born resident population exceeding 100,000; records show that nearly 300,000 Chinese immigrants entered the United States between 1850 and 1889” (MPI). Although, this is before Tan’s mother would have immigrated over to the United States, she came to a country who at the time already had housed immigrants from China having some diversity within their language, as Tan referred to it there was already some of the ‘broken’ English dispersed throughout the country. Without this large number of immigrants coming to the country like Tan’s mother and the others from China, there would then be solely one language that everyone used in the United States. Every time a different group of people from different nationalities come to the United States they bring along their language. Once they get here to the country it is then their job to try and convert the language they already know and speak fluently to an entirely different language. This is exactly what happened to Tan’s mother, she tried her very best to learn the English language. She understood enough of the language to converse with her family members, who spoke to her often and they could understand. However, when these immigrants are talking to others who do not converse with them regularly it is hard for both to understand. This is how different dialects of the English language came about. Languages are formed differently throughout the world, when people come to this country attempting to speak the English language the way they speak others it forms what Tan refers to as ‘Englishes’.  Once immigrants begin to speak the language they now must learn to adjust to the different aspects of living in the United States. 

One of the hardest things for anyone to learn is the differences between one’s languages. With so many people immigrating to the United States it makes it very hard for people to learn the language because there are so many different ‘sub-languages’ or as Tan called it ‘broken’ English. Throughout the United States there are so multiple regions that speak differently and within those regions there are immigrants who are attempting to learn the language of their new homeland. A professor at Colorado State University named Philip Cafaro recently contributed a paper written by Dennis Hodgson entitled How Many is Too Many? The Progressive Argument for Reducing Immigration into the United States. In this text Cafaro states he would “permanently ‘cut’ annual legal immigration, now running at about one million, to 300,000”. (Cafaro 376). By having the country cut down on the number of immigrants, a lot of families like Tan’s will now be singled out for not understanding the language. Therefore, making it a lot harder for immigrants to adjust to what it is like to live within the United States. Life would be a lot easier for these families if there were more of them struggling to learn the language throughout the country since so few people can understand them. When Tan’s mother felt as though she did not fit in Tan would interpret as said by Tan… “My mother has longed realized the limitations of her English as well. When I was fifteen, she used to have me call people on the phone to pretend I was she” (344). This was a daily struggle for a lot of the immigrants that came over from various countries around the world to the United States and found it very hard to learn the language well enough to make important phone calls or confront someone face-to-face. These immigrants just like Tan’s mother had to work hard to try and get adjusted to the language barrier. However, the one thing that made it easier was the large amount of them that were in this country. 

The next step for Tan’s mother and immigrants alike is to feel accepted from the other citizens of the United States whether they can speak the English language fluently or if they speak their ‘broken’ English dialect. In the case of “Mother Tongue” Tan was the reason that her mother began to feel accepted, after Tan began to realize that she used her mother’s English language more than the proper English that people are taught to speak in early elementary school. Tan states in her text that, “I later decided that I should envision a reader for the stories I would write. And the reader I decided upon was my mother, because these were stories about mother. So, with the reader in mind- and in fact she did read my early draft- I began to write stories using all the Englishes I grew up with: the English I spoke to my mother” (346). As an immigrant coming to the United States it is difficult to speak and read, but for Tan’s mother she has the opportunity to be totally emerged in her ‘broken’ language when reading her daughter’s works. Since other people in this country read her works Tan’s mother knows she is accepted in this country.  The feeling of being accepted is hard for immigrants because they can never fully speak the true language of English but Tan’s mother represents those Chinese immigrants who have close to the same ‘broken’ Englishes. 

The United States has always been and still is an immigrant hot spot with people coming to this country from all over the world. When passing through the doors of Ellis Island they bring along their physical belongings as well a language that they have used since day one. But once they walk out the doors they must understand they may need to learn their version of the English language in order to succeed, as seen in “Mother Tongue”. It is very hard to adjust to the language so many immigrants try the best they can and that then results in a form of ‘broken’ English. Tan tells the story of her mother not having the best English and in turn took her a long time to get accepted from other citizens within the United States. Tan realized that she also uses the form of ‘broken’ English in her everyday life and began to use this way of writing in her texts. This was a way for her to show who she actually is as well getting her mother to finally feel accepted by using her ‘English. Tan makes sure to write this way so that she can represent all the immigrants who struggle with this everyday just like her mother has done. “Mother Tongue” not only talks about Tan’s mother but it talks about the history of immigrants coming to the United States bringing along with them their own languages and cultures that eventually should convert into something of the American way. 
