Superman and Me
Superman and Me, by Sherman Alexie, is a tale of books and the massive effect they had on Alexie’s life. He taught himself to read at the age of three by picking up a Superman comic book. His reading skills advanced quickly; as a result, his experience growing up in an Indian reservation was a challenge. Indian children were expected to be unintelligent, to be failures in the world outside of the reservation. Alexie’s life was one of bravely resisting a stereotype. Instead of pretending to be stupid like the other Indian children and being submissive to the non-Indians, he read non-stop until he developed into a writer. He became a writer despite the fact that writing was never taught in the Indian schools. Now, he pays visits to Indian schools to teach kids something they might never get another chance to learn – the power of books. Language played a crucial role shaping Alexie’s life. Through his dedication to experiencing and learning language, he was able to defy a controlling stereotype and worked towards helping young kids defy it as well.
Mother Tongue
In this piece, Amy Tan writes of the “broken English” that she grew up with. When people hear Tan’s mother speak in “broken English”, they tend to not take her seriously or pretend to not understand her. As a result, Tan often had to use her “proper” English to help her mother out. While most people will barely understand this “broken English”, it is just another language for Tan and her family. It is clear and natural, conveying the same ideas as if it were regular English. Despite the fact that English was spoken by Tan’s mother, people refused to service her because she wasn’t speaking the language “correctly.” She was seen as unintelligent even though she understood complex, English things such as Wall Street Week and the Forbes report.