“Superman and Me,” Sherman Alexie
Sherman Alexie recounts her childhood experiences of being a poor Indian boy on a government reservation who, unlike others, held a strong interest in books. Through reading and maintaining an interest in his education, Alexie diverged from the path of the common uneducated and “defeated” Indian-American. Through reading, Alexie discovers the purpose of paragraphs and describes his own perception of them as a “fence” that held words. The substance inside these fences, as Alexie explains, were separate elements and entities such as individuals, locations, characteristics, and basically everything else. His understanding of the world in paragraphs contributed to a greater understanding of himself and his surroundings, both in his youth and adulthood. I have always found this concept, though straightforward, extremely practical in the understanding of oneself. For our upcoming assignment, using this metaphor could be extremely useful.
“Mother Tongue, “Amy Tan, pgs. 165-170
In “Mother Tongue “ by Amy Tan, the intrinsic change of language depending on the situation is explored. Amy Tan recounts her experience in noticing how her language changes depending on who her audience is. With her mother, the usual formality of her speech is substituted by a more unceremonious dialect. Tan analyzes and contributes this to the cultural implications of being an Asian-American. Tan asserts that growing up in an immigrant household played a role in the development of her language and to some extent, inadvertently limited it. She defends this claim by connecting it to the fact that Asian-American representation and involvement in literature and language is very minimal compared to that of sciences and maths. This correlation is evident and widespread in Amy Tan’s personal use of language and could probably be observed in that of many others. Since English is my second language and that of my fathers, this only happens after my abilities to use language surpassed his. I naturally tone down my language when speaking to my father but I do not “dumb” it down. I limit my language to match my father’s ability to comprehend English but what I am expressing still holds the same meaning.