Mother Tongue, written by Amy Tan, brings reader’s attention to Asian-Americans and how they were treated differently in American. Tan uses inside stories from her and her mother’s experiences in America to show the discrimination they had to go through. Both the articles “Minority Status, Pluralistic Education and the Asian-American: A Teacher’s Perspective and Agenda” and “Model Minority Stereotyping, Perceived Discrimination, and Adjustment Among Adolescents from Asian American” contain elements that are important for this text and proving how immigrants, specifically Asian Americans, were discriminated against. 

Asian-Americans have a long past of getting discriminated against. In 1882, “Congress passed the first ethnic-based immigration law, the Chinese Exclusion Act (Solomon, 1985). This act put a ban on laborers. Therefore, only letting officials, teachers, travelers, and merchants to enter from China. They only wanted the people they thought were valuable, if at all. This already goes to show that Americans did not want Asian-Americans in their country. Tan states that she has plenty of evidence of people not taking her mother serious or not doing what she asked of them just because of her race. For example, Tan would have to call their stockbroker for her mother and pretend to be her to demand what they wanted. Tan and her mother both knew that if they were to listen to Tan’s mother broken English, she wouldn’t be taken seriously and would be totally ignored. This is just one of the many examples Tan gives that shows her mother feeling less because her English was less. In conclusion, people did not want Asian-Americans or immigrants in America and that’s why they were treated this way. 

Other immigrants, for example the Japanese-Americans, also did not have it easy. Many “Japanese-Americans precipitated by the attack on Pearl Harbor resulted in the forced confinement of some 110,000 persons in ten camps located mainly in desolate areas of the west” (Solomon, 1985). This was back in 1942, only 40 years prior to the date this article was written. Because of this incident, there were many tight restrictions on the Japanese and other immigrants. Finally, in 1965, Congress passed an Immigration Act that eliminated immigration quotas. This increased immigration dramatically. Many immigrants fled to America but they did not know the discrimination they would have to face. 

Since the act in 1882 was created, it showed that they only wanted Asian-Americans who would be an asset. This is mainly due to Asian-Americans stereotypes and images. “The image is often associated with academics, for example, with Asian Americans viewed as particularly skilled in science, math, and music, as studious individuals who throw off the grading curve, or as quiet students that teachers and other school staff admire and respect” (Kiang, 2016). Asian-Americans were viewed as being smart in math and science. Tan did in fact do better in her exams for math and science, but still did well in English. Tan explains “those scores were not good enough to override the opinion that my true abilities lay in math and science, because in those areas I achieved A’s and scored in the ninetieth percentile or higher” (Kiang, 2016). Her teachers would still steer her away from writing because of this stereotype when what she really wanted to do was write. Moreover, this is what many other Asian-Americans had to face. In school, they were expected to be smart and eventually have a career in either math or science. They were held back from the things they may have truly wanted to do. 

“Wherever Asian immigrants live they have to withstand the prejudice and discrimination from the American community. Their progress in getting settled in is slow and painful, but they are determined to overcome through education and self-help the barriers that have been placed before them” (Solomon, 1985). Education is something Asian-Americans do strive in, but for them to get settled in and strive in school, they must be treated equally in school. For a long time period, Asian-Americans were separated from whites and other groups for schooling. This separation set them apart from other groups and definitely hindered their settling in. Many people fail to realize the African Americans weren’t the only ones that faced segregation. Asian-Americans are not separated in the schooling system anymore, but separated by financial success. Most Asian-Americans have a higher income and therefore live in separate but nicer residential neighborhoods. 

These images and stereotypes of Asian-Americans can cause tension and damage the relationship between them and other groups. “From almost the first moment the Chinese landed in San Francisco in the 1850’s, they were subjected to harsh treatment. The aim was to exclude them from the United States because of basically racist fears and beliefs” (Solomon, 1985). In one of Tan’s examples, her mother goes to the doctor to get a diagnosis of her CAT scan. She goes alone and is told that they lost the CAT scan results and that she would have to come back another time. She made Tan call the doctors and as soon as she did, they apologized for losing the results and they would be found immediately. This tension between races can cause the undermined race to suffer. 

Asian-Americans were highly discriminated against not only in school, but in daily aspects of their lives. Congress placed may acts and laws on immigrants, one of the major ones being the Chinese Exclusion Act. This highly discriminated against Asian-Americans. On top of this act, there were stereotypes that many people believed in. As we read in “Mother Tongue,” Tan was discriminated against because of her race. Her teacher told her to stay away from writing and stick with math and sciences. One of her former bosses even told her that writing was her worst skill and she should try to go towards account management. This is the discrimination Tan had to face, but what her mother had to face was a lot worse. Tan had to do almost everything for her mother in order to get what they wanted. People had perceptions of a limited English speaker because of this country’s past and the stereotypes that many people believed in. In conclusion, Asian-Americans, along with other immigrants, were discriminated against and there is evidence that it is still present today. 
