'How to Tame a Wild Tongue/Mother Tongue Essay\r'

'What’s makes someone an American? Am I more American because my skin is white and I talk perfect side of meat? Or am I more American because my family immigrated present 100 years earlier than intimately? Our country is a melting tidy deal of different races, backgrounds and beliefs. Two women, who atomic number 18 the children of immigrants, share their stories of growing up in America. The premier is Gloria Anzaldua, a Chicana who grew up in southeastern Texas. The first chapter of her book, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza is entitle â€Å"How to Tame a Wild idiom”.\r\nShe describes life as a unripened woman who is as well as Spanish for Americans and too American for Spanish. The second is Amy convert, a fille of immigrants who fled China in the 1940s. In her mental testingify â€Å"Mother Tongue” she recalls growing up with a Mother who could not communicate perfect position. While these women are from devil different backgrou nds, their experiences with styles are the same. Both women maintain evince the idea that language utilise with family, the commandal system and caller soma us as individuals.\r\nWhen a soulfulness is at stead, surrounded by those who are nearest and dearest to them, they let their fend for pot. The languages we speak around our families are much different from the ones we use in the original world. burning states this opinion in her essay; she remembers a time when she was conscious of the side of meat she was using around her mother. She was walking down the street with her mother and using the side of meat that she did not use around her mother. She in addition states that this is the same typewrite of position she uses with her husband. She writes that this type of language â€Å"has become our language of intimacy, a different sort of English that relates to family talk, the language I grew up with.” (Tan, foliate 143)\r\nAnzaldua has a similar opinion when it comes to the language of our family; she writes â€Å"My â€Å"home” tongues are the languages I speak with my child and brothers, with my friends.”(Anzaldua, paginate 134) Her type of language is a considered a subcategory of Spanish, called Chicano Spanish. Anzaldua also explains that in her refining she had to learn different dialects of Spanish, according to region that person was from. These two women played chamaeleon with their languages, blending in perfectly with their surroundings, wear a mask to the world until they were home. At home, they were safe to use the language they grew up using without fear of judgment.\r\nâ€Å"To get a good job, you need to speak English well. What’s the use of all your education if you speak English with an accent?” (Anzaldua, page 132) Anzaldua grew up with the idea that her imperfect English would sic her opportunities, even with an education. When she became a superior school teacher, she was re primanded for giving her students literature by Chicanos. Tan’s educational experiences were fairly different than Anzaldua. Her limitations were set by test scores in English and Math. Tan writes that her English scores â€Å"were not good enough to override the opinion that my aline abilities lay in math and science, because in those areas I achieved A’s and scored in the ninetieth percentile or higher.” (Tan, page 145) While both women felt particular in their educational world, they both establish a love for writing. They both became a voice for their people.\r\nOne thing that shapes a person’s perspective of themselves is how their society views them. Tan, at a young age, would oft have to speak for her mother. Her mother’s English was view as â€Å" confounded” or â€Å"limited” by society. This had a profound effect on how Tan viewed her mother’s English; she writes â€Å"because she expressed them imperfectly her thoughts were imperfect.” (Tan, page 144) Anzaldua’s Chicano Spanish was viewed as â€Å" lamentable Spanish” by society. â€Å"If a person, Chicana or Latina, has a diminished estimation of my native tongue, she also has a low estimation of me.” (Anzaldua, page 136) Society, the residential area in which these women lived, has looked down on the English that they speak. Both women feel that their language is â€Å"poor”, â€Å"broken”, or â€Å"limited” by society’s standards.\r\nGloria Anzaldua and Amy Tan were increase in two different cultures, with two different types of English. They grew up in families that verbalize with accents and different dialects. Both women navigated their way by means of the educational system, which was not designed with them in mind. They were also viewed by their communities as organism limited because their home language was not the standard. These two women also fought the system that wi shed to limit their voices. They became writers, they wrote their stories of how their language, for better or worse determine who they were.\r\n'