Week 2-Assignment 3

Assignment #3 Tongue Tied: Santa Ana: Stories about the lives of multilingual children in public #12 schools. Wascicula ya he? (Do you speak English?) (pp. 56-63); From the Woman Warrior (pp. 78-81); Mother Tongue (pp. 169-73); My Hawai’I pp179-83)

Reflection

Wasciula ya he? (Do you speak English?) was a very interesting chapter to read. The girl didn’t know how to write a composition in English until she left the government school and entered seventh grade at a small school run by nuns. She was able to learn how to read in a program they called the reading lab. That is great because a lot of children who have trouble speaking English have trouble reading or learning how to. Having a program is great because they learn how to read. The second-year Delphine was at the Cahtholic school she was given a teacher that was an artist. He was a mentor to her and helped in any way he could. This story was inspiring to read and glad that I understood what Delphine went through.

From the Woman Warrior was also a good read in Tongue Tied. The first thing that kind of shocked me was when Maxine’s mom cut her tongue. I was like what?, Who would do such a thing? When Maxine went to kindergarten and had to speak English for the first time, she became silent. For Maxine, reading out loud was easier than reading to herself. It was a very rough time for Maxine to use her words.

Mother Tongue was a great story about Amy Tan. She is a writer and she uses language as a tool at work. That is how she conveys her ideas, which is a great way to do so. Later, she realizes the English she uses with her mother and her close family were broken English. The first time she became aware of this was when giving a talk about her book, The Joy Club, she saw her mother in the audience and she realized that she had been using academic language learned from books, a language she had never used with her mother. Tan comes to the idea that the language spoken in the family, especially in immigrant families, plays a large role in shaping the language of a child. This made her acknowledge that perhaps her family’s language had an effect on her own opportunities in life. With her mother as an influence, Tan decided to write her stories for people like her, people with “broken” or “limited” English.

My Hawai’I pp1 was also a good chapter. Nana Veary was born in 1908 on O’ahu and was raised as the foster daughter of a pure Hawaiian mother and a Scots father. Both of them spoke fluent Hawaiin. Her poem was said beautifully and peacefully. This chapter was very short, but I enjoyed reading about Nana Veary’s story.