How to Tame a Wild Tongue/Mother Tongue Essay

Whats makes someone an American? Am I more than American beca apply my skin is white and I express perfect incline? Or am I more American because my family immigrated here vitamin C years earlier than most? Our country is a melting chamberpot of diametrical races, backgrounds and beliefs. Two women, who are the children of immigrants, share their stories of growing up in America. The first is Gloria Anzaldua, a Chicana who grew up in South Texas. The first chapter of her book, Borderlands/La Frontera The New Mestiza is titled How to Tame a Wild Tongue.She describes purport as a young woman who is likewise Spanish for Americans and too American for Spanish. The second is Amy sunburn, a daughter of immigrants who fled China in the 1940s. In her try out render Tongue she recalls growing up with a Mother who could not speak perfect side of meat. While these women are from devil contrary backgrounds, their experiences with dustups are the same. Both women have expressed the idea that delivery employ with family, the educational system and society shape us as individuals.When a person is at home, surrounded by those who are nearest and loved to them, they let their guard down. The nomenclatures we speak around our families are often antithetical from the ones we use in the professional innovation. Tan states this opinion in her essay she remembers a time when she was conscious of the English she was using around her mother. She was walk down the street with her mother and using the English that she did not use around her mother. She also states that this is the same attribute of English she uses with her husband. She writes that this type of voice communication has become our language of intimacy, a different sort of English that relates to family talk, the language I grew up with. (Tan, knave 143)Anzaldua has a similar opinion when it comes to the language of our family she writes My home tongues are the languages I speak with my sister and brothers, with my friends.(Anzaldua, page 134) Her type of language is a considered a subcategory of Spanish, called Chicano Spanish. Anzaldua also explains that in her culture she had to determine different dialects of Spanish, according to region that person was from. These two women played chamaeleon with their languages, blending in perfectly with their surroundings, wearing a mask to the world until they were home. At home, they were safe to use the language they grew up using without care of judgment.To get a reasoned job, you need to speak English well. Whats the use of all your education if you speak English with an accent? (Anzaldua, page 132) Anzaldua grew up with the idea that her imperfect English would limit her opportunities, even with an education. When she became a high school teacher, she was reprimanded for giving her students literature by Chicanos. Tans educational experiences were somewhat different than Anzaldua. Her limitations were set by test lots in Eng lish and Math. Tan writes that her English scores were not good enough to override the opinion that my true abilities lay in mathematics and science, because in those areas I achieved As and scored in the ninetieth percentile or higher. (Tan, page 145) While both women felt trammel in their educational world, they both found a love for writing. They both became a voice for their people.One thing that shapes a persons spot of themselves is how their society views them. Tan, at a young age, would often have to speak for her mother. Her mothers English was view as broken or limited by society. This had a profound effect on how Tan viewed her mothers English she writes because she expressed them imperfectly her thoughts were imperfect. (Tan, page 144) Anzalduas Chicano Spanish was viewed as poor Spanish by society. If a person, Chicana or Latina, has a depressed estimation of my native tongue, she also has a low estimation of me. (Anzaldua, page 136) Society, the community in which t hese women lived, has looked down on the English that they speak. Both women feel that their language is poor, broken, or limited by societys standards.Gloria Anzaldua and Amy Tan were raised in two different cultures, with two different types of English. They grew up in families that spoke with accents and different dialects. Both women navigated their way through the educational system, which was not designed with them in mind. They were also viewed by their communities as being limited because their home language was not the standard. These two women also fought the system that wished to limit their voices. They became writers, they wrote their stories of how their language, for better or worse shaped who they were.