GSR 102-Amy Tan, “Mother Tongue,” in Lunsford al. p. 804.

"Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan was about the author's mother struggling with her language ability since English is her second language. In these situations like this, deaf people and hearing people are no different from each other because English is their second language next to their primary language. Amy said she understood her mother's broken English most of the time while her friends can only understand about half of what she said. This implies that Amy grew up with her mother and have gotten used to her english and it's similar to us as well. Deaf people who has English as their second language has some form of "broken english" and their parents have gotten used to it because they lived together for many years. It is the same thing with Deaf people using their "deaf" voices only people who knows them for a long time can understand, while other people can't understand them.

I believe what the author is trying to say here is that in America, "perfect" english is mandatory to the Americans and they acknowledge people through their language ability. It's pretty a fact since I've noticed hearing people, even deaf people avoid or doesn't recognize people with their limited languge ability. This dilemma proves the idea of arguments based on character and is language ability a quality that adds to the character? Illiterate? Incompetence? Perhaps so.

I understand the author's anger and frustration about her mother because I was in the same boat with her too. Sometimes, I get embarassed when some deaf people with limited english I know went up to hearing peole and handed them a piece of paper of what they wanted. I often thought they were bemused, or didn't even understand what the paper said and they might have their first impression of deaf people. Their first impression could be, "Oh, deaf people doesn't know how to write??" Also, this impression of deaf people may impact the whole deaf community because most of the time, a deaf person usually represents the deaf community.

I think Amy Tan wrote a great story about her mother and she exposed the difficulties people with their limited language abilities had to go through here in America.