Mother Tongue by Amy Tan and Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood by Richard Rodriguez demonstrates challenge they faced with their identities based on their race, family and language. Mother Tongue and Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood are similar in terms of they struggle they experienced. However, both authors are different in terms of how they struggled with understanding of family language and conflicts of speaking the acceptable language by the society. The two books indicate how Tan and Rodriguez are different with respect to views regarding the significance of intimate family language. Authors use their essay to demonstrate the intimacy of family language, they discovered at different stages of their lives. For instance, Mother Tongue indicates that Tan discovered about various forms of English language when giving a speech about "Joy Luck Club". Additionally, the different forms of English language are determined by the situation (Sergeant & Greenwell 20). Implicitly, Tan thinks that she has been using different types of English language including broken edition to communicate with her mother while formal version to speak with the community. The broken version of English language is reflected in Mother Tongue as an intimate language that is good for family talk. Generally, Tan in her essay recognizes the fact that she did not lose the intimacy of her family language and its role in her life. Unlike Tan who recognized the intimacy of family language later in life, Rodriguez learned about the significance of family language at an early age. A time when Rodriguez entered the house he identify changed because he felt not only accepted but also loved. In his essay, Rodriguez states that "Smiling, I’d hear my mother call out, saying in Spanish (words): ‘Is that you, Richard?’ all the while her sounds would assure me: You are home now; come closer; inside. With us” (Augenbraum & Olmos 397). Moreover, when his mother calls him in the family language he was assured of his identity. As a young boy, he found intimacy in family language and does not recognize the society's language. Another similar aspect is that Tan and Rodriguez were guilty by unfairly giving their parents identities. This is a result of difficulties their parents faced when speaking societal language. Tan believes that her mother is not intelligent because of broken English. For example, Tan posits that "I know this for a fact, because when I was growing up, my mother’s ‘limited’ English, limited my perception of her. I was ashamed of her English.”
(O'Keefe 323). Tan gave her mother a wrong identity because of her language and believed that it mirrored the quality of her views. Tan's views towards her mother’s English are based on how the society views viewed her mother (Seargeant & Greenwell 21). Like Tan, Rodriguez also depicts the way he was uneasy when his parents tried to speak the language of the society (Augenbraum & Olmos 395). Instead, he is embarrassed by his parents because of the society's views of them. Inasmuch as Rodriguez’s parents were successful, he remembers how the society treated them for being unable to speak proper English language. While both authors struggle with the identity of their parents, they work hard to change their identities. However, as adults the authors realize that their assumptions towards their parents were misguided. Both authors’ identities can be associated with challenges they faced to shape them. Tan remembers her Mother "Broken English, something that nearly affected her education and also opportunities. She believes that her mother’s English was could affect her prospects and worked to embrace the language of the society. On the other hand, Rodriguez preferred to lose his family identity so as to get the societal identity. He clearly shows in his essay that he lost his Spanish identity to achieve the American one. For instance, he asserts that "At last, seven years old, I came to believe what had been technically true since my birth: I was an American citizen"(Augenbraum & Olmos 401). During his childhood, Rodriguez was only able to speak Spanish and in his adulthood lost the intimacy of family language. In contrast, both authors fought to embrace society language to either maintain or lose their family language. Specifically, Tan realized the importance of family language later in life and integrated it with the society's language. Nonetheless, Rodriguez was not fortunate in opting to clasp the language of the society hence losing the intimacy of family language. Even though language intimacy was useful, Rodriguez thought that it failed to make an intimate association. By and large, Tan and Rodriguez were successful writers while embracing the society's language that gave then an identity. As a child Rodriguez incorporated Spanish identity but later got an American one. On the contrary, Tan as a young girl wanted to lose her identity but embraced the language of her family and society, which enabled her to respect her mother. Regardless, Tan and Rodriguez were able to demonstrate the challenges associated with embracing society's language and maintain the intimacy of their families’ language.
Works Cited
Augenbraum, Harold, and Margarite Fernández Olmos, eds. The Latino reader: An American literary tradition from 1542 to the present. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1997.
O'Keefe, Claudia, ed. Mother. No. 671-52996. Simon and Schuster, 1996.
Rodriguez, Richard. "Aria: A memoir of a bilingual childhood." The American Scholar (1981): 25-42.
Seargeant, Philip, and Bill Greenwell. From Language to Creative Writing: An Introduction. A&C Black, 2013.
