Amy Tan in her essay, ‘Mother Tongue’ and Richard Rodriguez in his ‘Public and Private Language’ talk about how language affects their relationship with their parents. Both the authors come from similar immigrant backgrounds and talk about the different experiences they had with their parents when it came to speaking and understanding the English language.
Tan talks about the different ‘Englishes’ she uses in her everyday life. She uses pidgin English with her mother mostly and sometimes with her husband while she uses grammatically correct and often complex sentences when speaking in public. Her conversational English also changes when she is speaking to another American whose primary language is English. Tan says that she is so used to using different types of English that she hardly notices when she changes and keeps effortlessly gliding through the different ‘Englishes’. She says that although other people find it difficult to understand her mother, she has no difficulty in understanding what her mother says. For want of a better word, she calls her mother’s, the broken English. Even though it might be grammatically incorrect and not make sense to a person outside of the family or social circle, Tan could understand everything. In fact she also came to admire the English of her mother that was filled imagery, energy and observation. She credits her success as a writer to the way her mother spoke to her as she says, “Her language, as I hear it, is vivid, direct, full of observation and imagery. That was the language that helped shape the way I saw things, expressed things, made sense of the world (Tan 570).” In effect, Tan says that in spite of some embarrassment caused by her mother’s lack of English knowledge or her grasp of it, she understood her well and did not mind her mistakes. Rodriguez talks about his experiences growing up in an English speaking country while speaking Spanish at home. Rodriguez writing about his time in school, explains how he saw a clear distinction between Spanish and English. Spanish was a private language to be used at home and English was a public language to be used in school and other places. He says that the joy, comfort and the closeness he felt with his family slowly changed when they all decided to speak in English at home. The Rodriguez children's teachers decide that the kids are falling back in school because they spoke Spanish at home and tell their parents to start speaking in English. Rodriguez says that even though the decision to speak English at home was fun at first, it slowly started to drive a gap between the children and the parents. Since the children caught up with the language far more easily and quickly,it was not the same case with the parents, especially the father. As a result, he says that the father became more quiet and that it was the mother who spoke up for him in social situations.He says that the conversations between the children and the parents in the house also came down as the children were tired of repeating the sentences to the parents who could not follow them fast enough or misunderstood them. Rodriguez, speaking about the change that speaking in English brought about in his house says, “ We remained a loving family, but one greatly changed. No longer so close; no longer bound tight by the pleasing and troubling knowledge of our public separateness (Rodriguez 514).” Spanish and the lack of English knowledge had brought a sense of closeness to them but it was gone when they all started speaking English. His siblings and he were no longer excluded by their skill in the language, however their assimilation into the public language meant that the private language which had given them a special bond was gone.
Tan and Rodriguez both come from immigrant families whose parents have decided to give the children a better education. Growing up in America, the children learn the language as well as the culture and assimilate easily. the same however is not true of their parents. the parents struggle with the language as the kids learn it and use it in a way that the majority uses. Both the authors talk about how the language, English in this case affects their relationship with their parents. The similarities however stop here. Tan does not talk about any tension between her mother and herself because her mother cannot speak the language fluently. Rather, Tan has developed different styles of speaking the same language that would help her move seamlessly between the different worlds she inhabits. She does mention the embarrassing situations when her mother’s English and the fact that she had to be her mouthpiece ended up with her red faced such as the incident with the stockbroker. She is not ashamed of her mother though, In fact she credits her for her success as a writer as her mother’s understanding of the language gave her new insights into English and a different way to look at it and use it. Rodriguez has different experiences. Although he shares a loving relationship with his parents, he writes that the English language has altered certain familial dynamic in his house. He writes about the time the family was brought close through their exclusion owing to their problems with English language and how this closeness was changed when they learnt better English. Instead of being a happy experience their decision to speak English at home makes the mother restless and tensed as she can no longer talk to her kids as she used to and the kids ignore her because she cannot understand everything they are saying. As for the father, he becomes too shy after he is ridiculed for his pronunciation. While Tan takes her mother’s English for the way it is and does not mention any problems, Rodriguez talks about how learning and using another language changed the relationship he had with his parents.
Tan and Rodriguez are both examples of how language can change the relationship between a child and his or her parents. In some cases language may not come as a barrier while in some cases it might drive a wedge between the two. This is a case that can be observed in mainly immigrant families. The kids learn to assimilate faster while the parents are slower. This sometimes leads the kids to denounce the language spoken at home because they feel it might put them at a disadvantage or make them look different. I feel a certain disconnect with my parents when sometimes i inadvertently speak English at home and my parents do not understand me. We do not speak English at home and I find it difficult to switch between the two languages at times.
This topic is important, especially in countries with large immigrant communities. There is a pressure on the immigrants to assimilate while maintaining some semblance of their former culture, practices and languages. Assimilation might at times lead to the children forgetting their culture and language and this can create a rift within the family and the community. It is a fact that immigrant parents want their kids to have the best of both the worlds but this is not always easy. It becomes important to discuss this topic as some sort of a balance is needed between the parents and the children regarding their native tongue and the language spoken in the adopted country so everyone could be happy.
Works Cited
Tan, Amy. ‘Mother’s Tongue’. 506-510
Rodriguez, Richard. ‘Public and Private Language’. 512-515.