Mother Tongue

Author(s): Amy Tan

Source: The Threepenny Review, No. 43 (Autumn, 1990), pp. 7-8
Published by: Threepenny Review
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4383908
Accessed: 31-01-2017 05:17 UTC

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms

Threepenny Review is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The
Threepenny Review

This content downloaded from 128.228.173.42 on Tue, 31 Jan 2017 05:17:14 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 people on the phone to pretend I wasbecause in those areas I achieved As and
she. In this guise, I was forced to ask forscored in the ninetieth percentile or
information or even to complain andhigher.
Mother Tongue yell at people who had been rude to her. This was understandable. Math is
One time it was a call to her stockbrokerprecise; there is only one correct answer.
in New York. She had cashed out her Whereas, for me at least, the answers on
Amy Tan small portfolio and it just so happened
English tests were always a judgment
we were going to go to New York thecall, a matter of opinion and personal
next week, our very first trip outsideexperience. Those tests were con-
California. I had to get on the phonestructed around items like fill-in-the-
IAM NOT a scholar of English or lit- day showed up at my mother's wedding and say in an adolescent voice that was
blank sentence completion, such as
erature. I cannot give you much more to pay his respects. Here's what she said not very convincing, "This is Mrs. Tan.""Even though Tom was , Mary
than personal opinions on the English in part: And my mother was standing in thethought he was ." And the cor-
language and its variations in this coun- "Du Yusong having business like fruit back whispering loudly, "Why he don't rect answer always seemed to be the
try or others. stand. Like off the street kind. He is Du send me check, already two weeks late. most bland combinations of thoughts,
I am a writer. And by that definition, like Du Zong-but not Tsung-ming So mad he lie to me, losing me money." for example, "Even though Tom was
I am someone who has always loved Island people. The local people call And then I said in perfect English,shy, Mary thought he was charming,"
language. I am fascinated by language putong, the river east side, he belong to "Yes, I'm getting rather concerned. You with the grammatical structure "even
in daily life. I spend a great deal of mythat side local people. That man want had agreed to send the check two weeksthough" limiting the correct answer to
time thinking about the power of lan- to ask Du Zong father take him in like ago, but it hasn't arrived." some sort of semantic opposites, so you
guage-the way it can evoke an emo- become own family. Du Zong father Then she began to talk more loudly,wouldn't get answers like "Even though
tion, a visual image, a complex idea, or wasn't look down on him, but didn't "What he want, I come to New YorkTom was foolish, Mary thought he was
a simple truth. Language is the tool of take seriously, until that man big like tell him front of his boss, you cheatingridiculous." Well, according to my
my trade. And I use them all-all the become a mafia. Now important per- me?" And I was trying to calm her
mother, there were very few limitations
Englishes I grew up with. son, very hard to inviting him. Chinese down, make her be quiet, while telling
as to what Tom could have been, and
Recently, I was made keenly aware of way, came only to show respect, don't the stockbroker, "I can't tolerate any
what Mary might have thought of him.
the different Englishes I do use. I was stay for dinner. Respect for making big more excuses. If I don't receive the So I never did well on tests like that.
giving a talk to a large group of people, celebration, he shows up. Mean gives check immediately, I am going to haveThe same was true with word
the same talk I had already given to half lots of respect. Chinese custom. Chinese to speak to your manager when I'm analogies,
in pairs of words, in which you
a dozen other groups. The nature of the social life that way. If too important New York next week." And sure enough,
were supposed to find some sort of log
talk was about my writing, my life, and won't have to stay too long. He come to the following week there we were in cal, semantic relationship-for exam-
my book, The Joy Luck Club. The talk my wedding. I didn't see, I heard it. I front of this astonished stockbroker, ple, "sunset" is to "nightfall" as
was going along well enough, until I gone to boy's side, they have YMCA and I was sitting there red-faced and is to ." And here, you would be
remembered one major difference that dinner. Chinese age I was 19." quiet, and my mother, the real Mrs. Tan, presented with a list of four possib
made the whole talk sound wrong. My You should know that my mother's was shouting at his boss in her impecca- pairs, one of which showed the sam
mother was in the room. And it was expressive command of English belies ble broken English. kind of relationship: "red" is to "stop
perhaps the first time she had heard mehow much she actually understands. We used a similar routine just five light," "bus" is to "arrival," "chills" i
give a lengthy speech-using the kind of She reads the Forbes report, listens to to "fever," "yawn" is to "boring."
days ago, for a situation that was far less
English I have never used with her. I was Wall Street Week, converses daily with humorous. My mother had gone to the Well, I could never think that way.
saying things like, "The intersection of her stockbroker, reads all of Shirley hospital for an appointment, to find out knew what the tests were asking, but I
memory upon imagination" and "ThereMacLaine's books with ease-all kinds about a benign brain tumor a CAT scan could not block out of my mind the
is an aspect of my fiction that relates toof things I can't begin to understand.had revealed a month ago. She said she images already created by the first pair
thus-and-thus"-a speech filled withYet some of my friends tell me theyhad spoken very good English, her best"sunset is to nightfall"-and I woul
carefully wrought grammatical phrases, understand fifty percent of what myEnglish, no mistakes. Still, she said, the see a burst of colors against a darkenin
|burdened, it suddenly seemed to me,mother says. Some say they understand hospital did not apologize when they sky, the moon rising, the lowering of
with nominalized forms, past perfecteighty to ninety percent. Some say theysaid they had lost the CAT scan and shecurtain of stars. And all the other pair
tenses, conditional phrases-all the understand none of it, as if she werehad come for nothing. She said they did of words-red, bus, stoplight, boring
forms of standard English that I hadspeaking pure Chinese. But to me, mynot seem to have any sympathy when she just threw up a mass of confusin
learned in school and through books,mother's English is perfectly clear, per-told them she was anxious to know theimages, making it impossible for me to
the forms of English I did not use atfectly natural. It's my mother tongue.exact diagnosis since her husband and sort out something as logical as saying:
home with my mother. Her language, as I hear it, is vivid,son had both died of brain tumors. She"A sunset precedes nightfall" is th
Just last week, I was walking downdirect, full of observation and imagery. said they would not give her any more same as "a chill precedes a fever." Th
the street with my mother, and I again That was the language that helpedinformation until the next time and she only way I would have gotten that an
found myself conscious of the English I shape the way I saw things, expressedwould have to make another appoint- swer right would have been to imagin
was using, the English I do use with her.things, made sense of the world. ment for that. So she said she would not
an associative situation, for example
We were talking about the price of new ATELY, I've been giving more leave until the doctor called her my
daugh- being disobedient and staying ou
and used furniture and I heard myself Lthought to the kind of English my ter. She wouldn't budge. And when the past sunset, catching a chill at nigh
saying this: "Not waste money thatmother speaks. Like others, I havedoctor finally called her daughter, me,which turns into feverish pneumonia a
way." My husband was with us as well,described it to people as "broken" or who spoke in perfect English--lo and punishment, which indeed did happe
and he didn't notice any switch in my"fractured" English. But I wince when I behold we had assurances the CAT tome.
English. And then I realized why. It'ssay that. It has always bothered me that scan would be found, promises that a
because over the twenty years we've I can think of no way to describe itconference call oni Monday would be I HAVE been thinking about all this
been together I've often used that same other than "broken," as if it were dam- held, and apologies for any suffering mylately, about my mother's English,
kind of English with him, and sometimesaged and needed to be fixed, as if it mother had gone through for a most about achievement tests. Because lately
he even uses it with me. It has become lacked a certain wholeness and sound- regrettable mistake. I've been asked, as a writer, why there
our language of intimacy, a differentness. I've heard other terms used, "lim- I think my mother's English almost are not more Asian-Americans repre-
sort of English that relates to familyited English," for example. But they had an effect on limiting my possibilities sented in American literature. Why are
talk, the language I grew up with. there few Asian-Americans enrolled in
seem just as bad, as if everything is in life as well. Sociologists and linguists
So you'll have some idea of what thislimited, including people's perceptionprobably will tell you that a person's creative writing programs? Why do so
family talk I heard sounds like, I'll quoteof the limited English speaker. developing language skills are more many
in- Chinese students go into engi-
what my mother said during a recent I know this for a fact, because when Ifluenced by peers. But I do think that the neering? Well, these are broad sociolog-
conversation which I videotaped and was growing up, my mother's "limited" language spoken in the family, especially ical questions I can't begin to answer.
then transcribed. During this conversa- English limited my perception of her. I in immigrant families which are more But I have noticed in surveys-in fact,
tion, my mother was talking about awas ashamed of her English. I believedinsular, plays a large role in shaping the just last week-that Asian students, as a
political gangster in Shanghai who had whole,
that her English reflected the quality oflanguage of the child. And I believe that always do significantly better on
the same last name as her family's, Du, what she had to say. That is, because sheit affected my results on achievement math achievement tests than in English.
and how the gangster in his early years expressed them imperfectly her thoughtstests, IQ tests, and the SAT. While my
And this makes me think that there are
wanted to be adopted by her family were imperfect. And I had plenty ofEnglish skills were never judged as poor, other Asian-American students whose
which was rich by comparison. Later,empirical evidence to support me: thecompared to math, English could not be English spoken in the home might also
the gangster became more powerful, farfact that people in department stores, atconsidered my strong suit. In grade
be described as "broken" or "limited."
richer than my mother's family, and onebanks, and at restaurants did not takeschool, I did moderately well, getting
And perhaps they also have teachers
who are steering them away from writ-
her seriously, did not give her good ser-perhaps Bs, sometimes B + s in English,
vice, pretended not to understand her,and scoring perhaps in the sixtiething or and into math and science, which is
or even acted as if they did not hear her.seventieth percentile on achievement what happened to me.
This talk was originally delivered as part of tests. But those scores were not good Fortunately, I happen to be rebellious
My mother has long realized the limi-
a panel entitled "Englishes: Whose English
in nature, and enjoy the challenge of
Is It Anyway?" during the 1989 State of thetations of her English as well. When I
enough to override the opinion that my
Language Symposium in San Francisco. was fifteen, she used to have me call true abilities lay in math and disproving
science, assumptions made about

FALL 1990

This content downloaded from 128.228.173.42 on Tue, 31 Jan 2017 05:17:14 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 me. I became an English major my first mind-and in fact, she did read my early
year in college after being enrolled as drafts-I began to write stories using all
pre-med. I started writing non-fiction as the Englishes I grew up with: the English
a freelancer the week after I was told by I spoke to my mother, whichl for lack of
my former boss that writing was my a better term, might be described as

ll . s The Best of
worst skill and I should hone my talents "simple"; the English she used with me,
toward account management. which for lack of a better term might be
But it wasn't until 1985 that I finally described as "broken"; my translation

je jjjj jjjjjSjCrazyhorse
began to write fiction. And at first I of her Chinese, which could certainly be
wrote using what I thought to be wittily described as "watered down"; and what
crafted sentences, sentences that would I imagined to be her translation of her
finally prove I had mastery over the Eng- Chinese if she could speak in perfect

Thi.. . .... .. rty Years of lish language. Here's an example from English, her internal language, and for
the first draft of a story that later made that I sought to preserve the essence, but
Poetry and Fiction its way into The Joy Luck Club, but not either an English or a Chinese struc-
without this line: "That was my mental ture. I wanted to capture what language
quandary in its nascent state." A terri- ability tests can never reveal: her intent,
stories
;.sJa. j;S 5 j' .This ;s collection
eclectic in Edited by and
of poems David Jauss ble line, which I can barely pronounce. her passion, her imagery, the rhythms of
stories published in the periodical since its founding contains 104 poems and Fortunately, for reasons I won't get her speech and the nature of her thoughts.
15 stories by 93 of America's most respected authors, including Lee K. Abbott, into today, I later decided I should envi- Apart from what any critic had to say
Robert Bly, Raymond Carver, Andre Dubus, Richard Hugo, Bobbie Ann sion a reader for the stories I would about my writing, I knew I had succeeded
Mason, Louis Simpson, William Stafford, John Updike, and James Wright.
In 1990, after polling more than one hundred editors and agents, Writer's
write. And the reader I decided upon was where it counted when my mother
my mother, because these were stories
finished reading my book, and gave me
Digest named Crazyhorse one of the fifty most influential magazines publish-
about mothers. So with this reader in
her verdict: "So easy to read." O
ing fiction today.

Praise for Crazyhorse:

"Over the years, an astonishing array of America's finest writers have pub-
lished their work here ... the list is virtually endless. An attractive journal that
would enhance any literature collection."
-Robert Hauptman, Magazines for Libraries Separation Of The Waters
"Everything about Crazyhorse speaks of quality."
-Janet S. Meury, Literary Magazine Review

"When God commanded, 'Let the waters be gathered together, unto one place,
472 pages, $24.95 cloth, $14.95 paper and let the dry land appear,' certain parts refused to obey. They embraced each
other all the more closely." -Jewish Legend

I ARKANSAS
The University of Arkansas Press, Fayetteville AR 72701 * 1-800-525-1823 In his voice I hear the first day
of the waters,
before the spirit moved, brooding,
over the face of them,

before the firmament appearing

in the wake of His Word
divided upper water from lower water,
heaven from earth,

on the second day. Here in his voice

the first day

WANTED!
once again refuses the command
to be the second,

vowel and phoneme all awash, inchoate

in a jubilant babble
I lean over the crib to watch, that goes on
after he sees me,
One (1) FAX machine, new or used.
after I say the name he hears as nonsense

One (1) small copying machine, new or used. the way the waters heard,
so entangled in the waters, whelmed
in the jubilant eddy

If you or your employers have any such machines that you of such complete embracing they couldn't
have outgrown, and that you would like to sell or donate to have known themselves
The Threepenny Review, please contact us immediately. As a as water, when the Lord said,
non-profit organization, The Threepenny Review can give "Let the waters part."
you a tax deduction for the value of your gift. Or, if you prefer
to sell, we can pay you in (a very small amount of) cold, hard See how, lonely for him, as on the shore
cash. of speech I call and call.
See how the syllables begin to dampen,
blur and dissolve back,
For further information about this mutually beneficial ar-
rangement, please contact Wendy Lesser at (415) 849-4545
close as they can now, toward the far surf
or write to her at The Threepenny Review, P.O. Box 9131,
they were torn from,
Berkeley, California 94709. The benefit, of course, will be
from the shore of the sixth day calling
mainly ours, and we thank you in advance for your help. back to the first.

-Alan Shapiro

8THETHR THE THREEPENNY REVIEW

This content downloaded from 128.228.173.42 on Tue, 31 Jan 2017 05:17:14 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms