In today’s society people are very open minded compared to the generations before hand. However, even in a perfect world we cannot as humans understand what we are not exposed to. People make judgments about others who are different than them and say “that’s not normal”. What is normal anyway? Is it desirable? Should we strive to meet such a standard that can’t even be defined? No. because such a standard does not exist. Everyone has different experiences whether it is being handicapped, autistic, speak differently or have down a daughter with down syndrome. Keeping an open mind and seeing shades of gray rather than black or white will change the world. In Bill Shannon’s case you see a man who can’t walk because he has crutches and assume …show more content…
As a parent he wanted his daughter to be like everyone, his definition of normal, in his original eyes she wasn’t. Her life would be different, yes, worse? No. He compares his daughter to clouds saying “… this one had no shape you could name by likeness”. It is was just as special and beautiful as the other ones and in the end the cloud, or his daughter, was like the aurora borealis. Just goes to show you that something that is confusing or unknown at first can be more than what the eye can see, odds are it'll be beautiful and special like the colorful lights and sounds in the sky that special …show more content…
Her mother and her family speak in a broken way and us americans assume that means unintelligence. Tan talks about how her mother ordered a CAT and the hospital lost the scan and didn’t apologize and said she would have to make another appointment. Her daughter spoke to the hospital and because of her better english and perceived better knowledge she got the scan. The way someone speaks doesn’t merit knowledge. The way one speaks just shows who they are and where they have been. Be proud of the way is what Tan say in the line “That was the language that helped shape the way I saw things, expressed things, made sense of the
Most people want to be normal. The definition of normal however, depends on the culture of the person making the judgment. Far too often, normal is defined in America by looking at the actions and beliefs of the average white middle class family. This definition of normal fails to let other cultures to be accepted, creating distance and misunderstanding.
The diction Tan uses exemplifies the degradation of Tan due to her family's Chinese culture. Using the word “stunned” to describe her reaction to a typical Chinese custom is bizarre (Paragraph 6). Tan has grew up accustomed to this, and is now surprised at her Dad for practicing a polite Chinese gesture. Tan only acted this way due to the presence of the the minister’s family. Tan continued displayed the abnormal behavior throughout the passage making the reader assume this is the only way she acts. This makes her
Tan also reflects on how her broken English with whom she shares with her mother is her mother tongue, and how this broken English has shaped who she is today. I am able to identify with Tan’s feelings as my grandmother who is a native Puerto Rican, has her own “mother tongue” as she still speaks in broken English. After my mother passed away when I was three, my grandmother moved in to help raise my sisters and I as we were very young. My grandmother used the same broken English Tan’s mother’s had used and my feelings towards it mirrored Tan’s at an early age. I remember because my father worked during the day my grandmother had to attend parent teacher conferences in his place. As I was still too young, my grandmother dragged me along and made me wait outside. We had waited in line for about two hours before finally being called for my conference. After a few minutes in, one of my teachers walks outside of the classroom and asks me if I know Spanish, to which I reply no. As the teacher walks back into the room I hear a resounding “Ma’am we must reschedule…there are other parents waiting and we cannot understand you, and we are pretty sure you
Tan makes an appeal to emotion with the connections she describes. A connection between a mother and daughter that is wrought with emotion is as relatable as humaneness is to a human. There is a soft declaration to be found in Tan’s statement, “I knew I had succeeded where it counted when my mother finished reading my book and gave me her verdict: “So easy to read.” Tan gains trust by appealing to emotion with something as understandable as the loving and more often than not tension riddled connection between a mother and her daughter. Tan incorporates the intimacy of the “broken” language in correlation to her husband with these words, “It has become our language of intimacy, a different sort of English that relates to family talk, the language I grew up with” (Tan 1). Under the assumption that Louis DeMattei (Tan’s husband) has no prior history with the Chinese Language Tan makes an important point of the use of the “broken” language she learned from her mother. Demattei doesn’t inquire or correct Tan when she switches between the English she acquired from the vast expanses of English literature and the English she acquired from her mother. Tan says, “he even uses it with me,” there is an implied level of comfort within the relationship she has with her husband. Tan shares what is viewed as “broken” and in need of fixing with Demattei and he reciprocates, leaving them
In the article, Tan furthers her point when she states that her mother, someone who uses a "broken" dialect, can do several things that the author herself struggles with, and does so despite what people
In the work of Amy Tan’s “Mother’s Tongue” she provides a look into how she adapted her language to assimilate into American culture. She made changes to her language because her mother heavily relied on her for translation. She was the voice of her mother, relaying information in standard English to those who were unable to understand her mother’s broken english. She tells about her mother’s broken english and its impact on her communication to those outside their culture. Her mothers broken english limited others’ perception of her intelligence, and even her own perception of her mother was scewed: Tan said, “I know this for a fact, because when I was growing up, my mothers ‘limited’ English limited my perception of her. I was ashamed of her English. I believed that her English reflected the quality of what she had to say.” (419) The use of standard english was a critical component to Tan’s assimilation into American culture. Standard English was an element she acquired to help her mother but more importantly is was an element that helped in her gain success as a writer. Tan changed her ‘Englishes’ (family talk) to include standard English that she had learnt in school and through books, the forms of English that she did not use at home with her mother. (417-418) Tan realized the ch...
Kathie Snow believed that other people’s attitude towards others is the greatest obstacle facing people with disabilities. According to Kathie Snow (2010), “The real problem is never a person’s disability, but the attitudes of others! A change in our attitudes leads to changes in our actions. Attitudes drive actions” (P. 2). I completely agree with Kathie Snow in this regard because this is more than just language; it is the attitudes we have towards
Things such as expecting; “a black student has spelling errors,” or “We think it is normal when a female or minority student does not succeed. And we think it is normal that a white employee is a better hire than a black employee” Saleem (2016) began to come towards a conclusion that one can accept how society sees normal which is; “normal is good, and anything outside of that very narrow definition of normal is bad.” or one can; “challenge that pre-existing notion of normal with my work and with my voice and with my accent and by standing here on stage, even though I'm scared shitless and would rather be in the
The problem started with her mother because she spoke broken English. She had a hard time during her life when she moved to the US because she couldn’t speak English well. The first reason was mixed the English with Chinese, and they used code. The family didn’t practice the language. On one day Amy Tan 's mother exposed to a lot of attitude and that’s bothering her because when she spoke to the native speaker some people understood 50% and the other did not understand her. Since she wants to order something they didn’t give her a nice service, or tried to ignore her, but Amy Tan always tried to fix the problem for her mother because she can speak the English clearly. Amy Tan 's mother felt depressing and Her daughter decided to make her mother glad, so she made a huge deal for her mother because she made her mother tried to speak English by explaining the English words to Chinese, and that’s made the English for her mother more easily just to be in touched with the American people. Even Amy Tan 's mother was struggling with English, but she plain in her life goal that’s mean nothing impossible to do it, and everything from learning could be possible. If anyone would something they
Tan first presented a love for her mother. The words and candour of speech that her mother uses reminds her of home and family. Her mother’s way of speaking seems natural to Tan and shaped how she interacted and reflected on the world around her. Tan took issue with the term “broken” as a description of her mother 's language because she saw nothing broken or limited in the way that her mother was able to share ideas. The limits for her mother was not how she organized her words in her sentences but rather it was how people would treat her when they heard her speak the way she does. Tan became accustomed to dealing with authorities who would not listen to her mother 's broken language. The stockbroker who tried not to pay her and the doctor who ‘lost’ her test results. Tan however also believes that her mother limited her in the way she was able to learn and what she excelled at in school. Math and sciences came easier to Tan than language, she struggled with the ambiguity of writing. Tan out of rebellion and passion started to write seriously and went on to write novels like The Joy Luck Club with complex sentence structure and academic words. She later found that using her family and her mother’s English that she was able to see her mother for her true ideas and passion. Her story is one of a second generation
Through of rhetorical devices Tan uses her experiences to educate those who do not speak multiple languages. Therefore, they can loosen up their gate and let the non-native speakers in. Tan wants us to give non-native speakers a chance to prove they are more than the “broken” English they speak. From there, we can become united socially and culturally.
Amy Tan is the author of the essay Mother Tongue. In this essay, she explains how the power of language has influenced her life through her mother and the experiences they have had together concerning her mother's English-speaking ability, or lack there of. She was born into a Chinese family where both Chinese and English were spoken. She is sensitive to and accepting of people's lingual differences. She talks about how the inability to speak English well in America gives others the wrong impression: "...everything is limited, including people's perceptions of the limited English speaker" (Tan 13). She is saying here that prolific English speakers place limitations on people who have limited English-speak...
Tan was born to a pair of Chinese immigrants. Her mother understood English extremely well, but the English she spoke was “broken.”(36) Many people not familiar with her way of speaking found it very difficult to understand her. As a result of this, Tan would have to pretend to be her mother, and she called people up to yell at them while her mother stood behind her and prompted her. This caused Tan to be ashamed of her mother throughout her youth, but as she grew, she realized that the language she shares with her mother is a “language of intimacy” (36) that she even uses when speaking with her husband.
Do you ever just look at someone who looks, or sounds different from you and consider them not normal? on the inside we are all human beings so we shouldn 't be narrow minded against others looks, or differences because what you don’t think is normal could be normal to someone else. If everyone was the same their would be no uniqueness, or variety everything would just be plain and dull. I agree with Safwat Saleem that being normal isn 't always good; especially if it means being trapped in the boundaries of society and not being able to express yourself. Many cultures, and people speak differently among each other, so just because you speak differently then a person from a different background doesn’t mean your not normal. Back in the ancient times people were very close minded and kept their thoughts small on what was the norm to them, they wouldn’t even see colors that weren 't normal to them, but now we can expand our horizons and extend what we see as normal. As humans we must get past
One of the most obvious things that we are noticing in our everyday lives is that people are distinctly different. There are 7 billion people sharing the earth. But how many are considered “normal”? When are people considered abnormal? To be normal is to adhere to a standard or norm, but unfortunately, normality is an impossible and unlikely dream that we will continue to strive for all our lives. We strive for it because it gives us that sense of self that we need to reassure us that we fit in. While undefined, depending on your upbringing, generation and culture, what you consider normal may not be normal for someone else because other countries and cultures have different traditions and practices that they view to be routine; and what in the past has been viewed as normal has evolved throughout the course of time.