Amy Tang argues in “Mother Tongue” that there are different variations of English used, and one not deemed perfect can limit society’s perception of that individual. Tang introduces us to her life story, growing up with her Chinese immigrant mother, and almost having to translate for her when speaking to others, as the level of respect they gave her mother was low. It wasn’t that she didn’t know English, quite on the contrary Tang tells us, however, the words just didn’t flow into perfect sentences, and therefore people considered her dumb. Tang relives a scenario in which her mother had gone to the hospital after a CAT scam revealed a benign brain tumor, and rightfully wanted an explanation of the results. The problem was, the hospital felt less of a need to fully take care of her and told her the results were lost and to come back another time. However, when Amy contacted them, they apologized profusely and assured they would fix this wrong. To others in society, the level of English one speaks is also a measure of their intelligence. Tang writes this piece with her mother in mind as her audience, because the stories were all about her, and she says it would be fitting. Though she normally converses with her mother in “broken” English, she knows her mother understands her, so her perfect English is not a problem. In fact, Tang says she wrote her book with input from all the Englishes she knew as a child.

When I think of broken English in my history, I think of the time when my family used to have a maid when we were little kids. Trying to speak Spanish with her was very hard, but half of that elementary use of Spanish came out as English anyways. So it really eventually became a mixture of a mutually understandable language. Looking back, I can’t help but laugh.