Amy Tan describes a situation where her mother speaks perfect English to some, but may come across differently to others. It kind of reminded me of what a metaphor is, where it could be words without a meaning, but with practice or in certain context it could make perfect sense. Tan is describing that there are different ways to do things and there is not necessarily only one correct way. Amy’s mother may speak English and some people may understand her but even if others don’t, it doesn’t make the way she speaks, wrong. Amy’s audience probably connects to many people in similar situations as her mother to make them feel there are other people in the same situation and they should not be discriminated against because of a language barrier. Especially in this case of her mother, she does not even feel that barrier exists. Mother Tongue shows that this piece could also be made for her mother to read because it is written in a simple language to understand. Sometimes I think people view people with language barriers as “stupid”. People may view others that way because they might not understand something simple or rather obvious, but it is not the concept that makes it difficult for them, it may just be the wording or language, where they might simply not understand what is being asked of them. When Amy’s mother was discriminated against when needed medical supervision, doctors might have had this view about her, but when they spoke to Amy and realized Amy and in fact her mother as well are not clueless in the slightest, they were promised the CAT scan would be found and a conference call would be held immediately, where beforehand they thought they could get away with telling her mother they lost it.

English has always been my first language and is always spoken in my house because my parents grew up in America, but I do have a story that this article reminded me of. My grandparents are also from America and speak English, however my grandmother is from Brooklyn and has a strong accent. My mom is from Miami and does not have an accent, but for some reason, any time my mom picks up the phone and speaks to my grandmother she speaks back in a Brooklyn accent with her and naturally copies it back. This represents how people adapt to different languages and base their responses off who they are talking to.