Sanchez 1

Nalleli Sanchez
Professor Jackie
English 113A
September 2, 2015
Broken English
The narrative, Mother Tongue, by Amy Tan describes about her life with her mother in
America. Tan is a writer who wrote a couple of novels such as her first novel, The Joy Luck
Club. This novel helped her come across how Chinese she really was. She is bilingual; she
speaks both Chinese and English. Tans mother never heard her talk English before until the day
of her first novel speech. Her mother has been her influence on her life. She describes how every
person speaks differently when they learn a new language. Other people didnt really understand
what Tans mother was saying in English but Tan believes her English was perfect and natural
because that was the language that helped the way she saw things and expressed things. Tan
described it to people as broken English, meaning how we speak different languages to
communicate with each other. Just because we speak differently doesnt mean we dont have
intelligence. We all speak differently to family compared to how we speak to people out in
public. Coming from an immigrant family plays a larger role in shaping the language of a child.
It had an effect on her own opportunities in life such as people telling her that she couldnt write.
Changing her major from Pre-Med to English showed that she did not care about the people who
criticized her because of her struggle with writing and language.