‘Instructor’s Name’
Comparison & Contrast
The obvious similarity between, Mary Mebane's "The back of the bus," and Amy Tan's "Mother Tongue", is the theme of the problems faced by the racial minority and their plight in America. However if we dwell deep we find that, both the authors have stressed upon the different aspects of this problem, and have taken a different approach in highlighting the sociological implications of racism/ethnicity.
While Mary Mebane has talked about lack of equal status (both legal/social) for American Blacks during the era in which she grew up, Amy Tan’s essay deals with the way in which language has formed a barrier for many Asian Americans, in making their views known. However, despite the difference in the approach, both the authors, by recounting their own personal experiences, have delineated how racism can have serious repercussions, on the lives of the ethnic minorities.
Mary Mebane, as she rightly states in her essay, belong to a unique generation who grew up in a period, when slavery was outlawed but segregation was legally practiced in the Southern States. The Jim Crow law treated Black people, as equal but separate. In the initial part of this essay, Mary Mebane takes the effort to explain clearly, the seating arrangement in a public bus in the 1940s, so that the readers (the essay was published in 1971) might understand the ground reality of that era. The bus ride Mebane took, encapsulates the life of the African Americans of that era, whereby they had limited possibilities, and the legislations drafted by the politicians did not transcend into real freedom on the streets.
In the first few paragraphs Mary establishes herself, as an adult objective observer, and in the subsequent paragraphs launches into a flashback that narrates the incidents, from the perspective of a young girl. By this approach, she gives her essay both the credibility of a firsthand account, and the matured observation of an adult.
The story narrated in the essay, is about a bus ride Mary and her sister Esther took in Durham. During the ride, a Black man, who sat in a seat which is labeled as a no-man’s land because both colored and White people are allowed to sit in it, is asked to make way for a White man who was standing. The Black man refuses to budge, and another colored lady comes to his support saying, Blacks have legal rights to sit in that seat. However the driver threatens to take the Black man to a police station, and when the bus stop arrives everyone gets down with relief, of having avoided a possible violent situation. The conclusion whereby Mary Mebane says, “The people who devised this system thought that it was going to last forever”, highlights the hypocrisy of the law makers of that era. It asserts the solid belief of the author that, any unfair system cannot sustain for long, and change will come sooner than later.
Amy Tan, in her essay ‘Mother Tongue’, talk about cultural racism without explicitly using that word in her essay, and without making use of an angry tone. The fact that, the author is an immigrant, and the story narrated is a real life account of her mother’s experiences, makes this essay an insightful eye-opener. The essay dwells on the prejudices, the author and her mother had to face because of their ethnicity, and how their level of mastery over the English language proved to be a bottle neck in their lives. She also writes about, how her mother’s so called ‘broken English’, affected her social interactions.
But Amy puts it beyond doubt that, though her mother did not use the correct grammatical syntax in her sentence, she had strong views on all subjects. She insists that her mother’s words were direct, opinionated, and full of vivid imagery, and her mother’s words were a source of motivation in her life. In fact, she calls the English she speaks with her mother to be the ‘language of intimacy’. Through these, she subtly hints that all the stereotypes associated with Asian Americans, that they are soft spoken and do not communicate well with others, are baseless. She squarely blames the listeners for not extracting the opinions out of the, what she calls the ‘simple’ language used by the Asians, and implores her audience, to look past the grammar, to the true sense of the words. Once this language barrier, and in effect the cultural barrier is dissolved, she says that the true potential and intuitiveness of the Asians will be revealed to the others.
She also makes an important point that, the English spoken at home is one of the major reasons behind many Chinese students in America, enrolling in engineering and mathematical courses, rather than English courses. Amy’s mother is looked down by the society, because of her way of English speaking, and sometimes Amy has to pretend to be her mother, to get things done for her. She says this language she speaks with her mother and also with her husband, brings her closer to her Chinese roots. It also has inspired her to write stories, in a language that does not have rich and difficult vocabulary (though she is capable of using them), but simple words through which her message reaches her readers.
In the concluding part of her essay, Amy says, “I knew I had succeeded where it counted when my mother finished reading my book and gave me her verdict: "So easy to read". Through this Amy conveys that, it is not the grammatical and sentence structure of the speaker that is important, but the simplicity and the depth of their thoughts that matter. Thus, she asks her fellow Americans, not to judge immigrants through their language, appearance or mannerisms, but to look into the person they are without the prism of stereotypes.
Both Mary Mebane and Amy Tan, belong to a race which suffers many prejudices and stereotypes. Blacks and Asians living in America have had a tough time, dealing with the societal attitudes directed towards them. It is particularly traumatic for a young person, who is growing up in this atmosphere. Mary and Amy, by narrating their own childhood experiences and validating it from an adult’s perspective, have given voice to the resentment of the socially marginalized people. Their essays are not angry manifestations of their hurt feelings and sentiments, neither are they a call for stricter rules and legislations favoring their ethnic group. However their essays are a simple request to the society, for mutual understanding and recognition.
Works Cited
Mebane, Mary. "The Back of the Bus." 1971. Pre.docdat.com. Web. 29 January 2014.
Tan, Amy. "Mother Tongue." 1989. The University of Arizona. Web. 29 January 2014.
