SUPERMAN AND ME
Author Sherman Alexie describes himself when he was a 3 year old Indian boy living on the Spokane Indian Reservation in the state of Washington. His father was a bit obsessive with his monster collection of books, varying from many different genres and pretty much anything he could get his hands on. When he began to start reading his father’s books, Alexie realized that the society around him was like a “paragraph”, a word he encountered when reading one of the books. This meaning that he started to view everyone and everything around him to be apart of something even better, similar to how a paragraph is apart of an entire book. However, the society around him doesn’t notice that, and ultimately becomes part of the stereotype that people living in the Indian Reservation are meant to be stupid and not pursue their goals/careers.
MOTHER TONGUE
Amy Tan discusses the fact that her own mother, who grew up in Asia, however learned a good amount of English and is very literate. As her experiences with her mother go by, she realizes that the impact her mother has with others, when she is speaking English, is significantly greater than her own native language. However, the debate remains to be settled of whether the people can truly understand what she is genuinely speaking about. Amy realizes that the people her mother is encountering are simply understanding the words she is saying, but not necessarily comprehending the ideas she is trying to make, mainly due to the fact that she is not speaking “proper English”.