As an individual goes through his or her daily life, obstacles are going to accumulate that will make the individual question his or her identity. Have you ever had a situation arise in your life that made you questioned your identity? Have you ever felt that you had more than one role in your identity? Sometimes, life throws curve balls that will make an individual sit down and contemplate on what the different outcomes would be depending on the particular situation one chose. Would you be okay with the particular outcomes that come along with the decision that you made? In life, every individual has an identity. Some people know what their specific identity is without going through a lot of situations. However, it may take other individuals …show more content…
It changes the way Tan sees her mother. She begins to see her mother like other people do. Tan becomes worried about her mother’s self-esteem when she is speaking because other people view her in a negative way. Amy Tan states that her mother’s “limited English limited [her] perception of her [mother]” when she says, “I [am] ashamed of her English. I [believe] that her English reflect[s] the quality of what she ha[s] to say. That is, because she expresse[s] them imperfectly her thoughts [are] imperfect” (393). Tan went to school when she was younger and learned how to speak correctly and what type of English was appropriate to use in the real world. Because of the way that Tan’s mother spoke it caused outsiders to treat her differently. For example, “the fact the people in department stores, at banks, and at restaurants [do] not take her seriously, [do] not give her good service, [pretend] not to understand her, or even [act] as if they [do] not hear her” (Tan 393). People do not want to take the time to patiently wait to figure out what her mother is trying to say. With a great deal of people viewing her mother like that it creates problems within the identity verification process. Burke and Stets explains this by stating that, “if we have trouble with verification process and the error signal remains large, we will feel distressed…our self-esteem will diminish” (80). When the outsiders say negative things about her mother, it can create her mother’s self-esteem to go down. Because her mother experiences negative feedback it creates an interruption in her identity that Burke and Stets describes in “Identities and Their
What influences a person’s identity? Does one get an identity when they are able to differentiate right from wrong, or are they born with it? There is not one thing that gives a person their identity, there are however, many different factors that contribute to one’s identity. From Contemplation in a World of Action written by Thomas Merton, Merton advocates identity by stating that “A person does not simply “receive” his or her identity. Identity is much more than the name or features one is born with. True identity is something people must create for themselves by making choices that are significant and that require a courageous commitment in the face of challenges. Identity means having ideas and values that one lives by” (Merton). Concurring with Merton a person is not given their identity at birth or while developing as an embryo, rather it is something that you create for yourselves over the course of life through decisions and actions made by the individual. Although identity is something that one may not be fully aware of or discover until last breaths. Identity can
“Two Kinds” by Amy Tan is about an immigrant family from China. The two main characters consist of a chinese mother named, Suyuan, and her American-born daughter, Jing Mei. For Suyuan, moving to America meant opportunities. She pushes her daughter, Jing Mei, into trying new activities in hopes of turning her into a child prodigy. Jing Mei becomes stubborn and resentful. Her attitude towards her mother becomes a protective wall against her struggle to change her. Amy Tan’s “Two Kinds”, depicts the cultural conflict that can arise between first-generation American children and their Chinese immigrant parents today.
The Essay written by Amy Tan titled 'Mother Tongue' concludes with her saying, 'I knew I had succeeded where I counted when my mother finished my book and gave her understandable verdict' (39). The essay focuses on the prejudices of Amy and her mother. All her life, Amy's mother has been looked down upon due to the fact that she did not speak proper English. Amy defends her mother's 'Broken' English by the fact that she is Chinese and that the 'Simple' English spoken in her family 'Has become a language of intimacy, a different sort of English that relates to family talk' (36). Little did she know that she was actually speaking more than one type of English. Amy Tan was successful in providing resourceful information in every aspect. This gave the reader a full understanding of the disadvantages Amy and her mother had with reading and writing. The Essay 'Mother Tongue' truly represents Amy Tan's love and passion for her mother as well as her writing. Finally getting the respect of her critics and lucratively connecting with the reaction her mother had to her book, 'So easy to read' (39). Was writing a book the best way to bond with your own mother? Is it a struggle to always have the urge to fit in? Was it healthy for her to take care of family situations all her life because her mother is unable to speak clear English?
Amy Tan Amy Tan was born in 1952, in Oakland, California to Chinese immigrants John and Daisy Tan. Her family eventually settled in Santa Clara. When Tan was in her early teens, her father and one of her brothers died of brain tumors within months of each other. During this period, Tan learned that her mother had been married before, to an abusive husband in China. After divorcing him, her mother fled China during the Communist takeover, leaving three daughters behind who she would not see again for nearly forty years.
Before beginning the explanation of how an identity is formed, one must understand what an identity is. So, what is identity? To answer this, one might think of what gives him individuality; what makes him unique; what makes up his personality. Identity is who one is. Identity is a factor that tells what one wants out of life and how he is set to get it. It tells what kind of a person one is by the attitude and persona he has. And it depends upon the mixture of all parts of one’s life including personal choices and cultural and societal influences, but personal choices affect the identity of one more than the others.
The term "Identity" is a complete opposite from the way that we are accustomed to seeing it and feeling it, in other words it is non-existent no one has any feelings, and no one posses any of their own personal characteristics, they are all alike. If a person were to try and find their own identity they were looked down upon and had to take a soma holiday (soma was a legal drug that took away all of a persons feelings or individualized idea’s). The soma holiday was everyone’s way out of having to deal with anything unpleasant or their way of having a good time.
The author demonstrates a personal example of how communication became a barrier because of the way Tan had to assist when her mother would speak. Tan would often have to relay the meaning of her mother’s message, because her mother’s “broken English” was difficult for others to comprehend. When Amy was younger, she remembers having to act as her mother on the phone, so that people on the other end would treat her mother with the respect she deserved. On one occasion, when her mother went to the doctor to get her CAT scan results on a benign brain tumor, her mother claimed that “the hospital did not apologize when they said they had lost the CAT scan and she had come for nothing” (Tan, 544 ). It was not until Tan had talked to the doctor that the medical staff seemed to care about any of her mother’s complications. Tan seems to come to the conclusion that a language barrier affects both sides. Not only does it affect Tan, but it also appears to affect the people around her. For instance, this happens when Tan changes her major from the stereotypical “Asian’s become doctors” to an English teacher. She eventually learns to write fiction and other writings that she was constantly told she would never be successful at.
Everyone in the world has their own identity, what is your identity and how you choose it? In the article “What Makes Up Your Identity?” which posted on a website, How to Adult by Tyra Marieze, she claims that generic, natural trait, environment, and nurturing influence are the factors of how people think who they are by themselves. Some people have a hard time adopting their identity because they don’t like the way people call them. Justin Maffeett, the author of “At 22, I Forgave Myself for 13 Years of Self-Hate” in Huffington Post, December 14, 2015. He informs that he hated himself because he is black and gay, and he hid his identity until he went to college, at last he adopted who he was and
In the beginning of the essay, she discusses the power of language. Tan write, "the way it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth"(1). Tan gives a lot of examples of how her mother was treated: "the fact that people in department stores, at banks, and at restaurants did not take her seriously, did not give her good service, pretended not to understand her, or even acted as if they did not hear her"(3). Do you know why her mother was treated like that? Because spoke the simple English she knew described has "broken" or "fractured" English. Tan's mother express her English the way she actually
In the essay, Tan demonstrates: “Lately, I’ve been giving more thought to the kind of English my mother speaks.” “When I was growing up, my mother’s limited English limited my perception of her. I was ashamed of her English.” “Fortunately, I later decided I should envision a reader for the stories I would write. And the reader I decided upon was my mother, because these were stories about mothers. So with this reader in mind, I began to write stories using all the Englishes I grew up with: the English I spoke to my mother, the English she used with me, my translation of her Chinese, and what I imagined to be her translation of her Chinese. I wanted to capture what language ability tests can never reveal: her intent, her passion, her imagery, the rhythms of her speech, and the nature of her thoughts.” So in this quote, it explains how she learned to accept her mother’s broken English and how they have benefited her. In this paragraph, we learned how Amy Tan conveys acceptance in her mother’s broken
Identity is a group of characteristics, data or information that belongs exactly to one person or a group of people and that make it possible to establish differences between them. The consciousness that people have about themselves is part of their identity as well as what makes them unique. According to psychologists, identity is a consistent definition of one’s self as a unique individual, in terms of role, attitudes, beliefs and aspirations. Identity tries to define who people are, what they are, where they go or what they want to be or to do. Identity could depend on self-knowledge, self-esteem, or the ability of individuals to achieve their goals. Through self-analysis people can define who they are and who the people around them are. The most interesting point about identity is that some people know what they want and who they are, while it takes forever for others to figure out the factors mentioned before. Many of the individuals analyzed in this essay are confused about the different possible roles or positions they can adopt, and that’s exactly the reason they look for some professional help.
Although the concept of identity is recurrent in our daily lives, it has interpreted in various ways.
The purpose of Amy Tan’s essay, “Mother Tongue,” is to show how challenging it can be if an individual is raised by a parent who speaks “limited English” (36) as Tan’s mother does, partially because it can result in people being judged poorly by others. As Tan’s primary care giver, her mother was a significant part of her childhood, and she has a strong influence over Tan’s writing style. Being raised by her mother taught her that one’s perception of the world is heavily based upon the language spoken at home. Alternately, people’s perceptions of one another are based largely on the language used.
A person can have more than one identity to be recognized as but when identity are thought of, people will mostly focus on the external markers of identity; what we can see on our self, physically.
What is identity? There is a common understanding of identity that is the distinct personality of individuals. Moreover, there is another understanding that the identities are the behavior that helps people to distinguish from others. Whatever the consideration is, identities represent who we are, and people are the combination of different identities. There are many people optimistic, but the number will be decreased while adding the other types of personality. Finally, there is only one person can fit into all the characters. That is the reason for the uniqueness of individuality. What is more, the formation of identities is the result of the surroundings. Andrew Solomon explains in his essay “Son,” that we are born with characteristics. The primary surrounding what people stay in their families where shaped their “vertical identity” that is the transmitted by their parents, such as gender, nationality, and races and those vertical identities are difficult to change. However, not all identities can be stable, Solomon suggests that there are also many “horizontal