The authors pf Hunger of Memory & Mother Tongue are immigrant kids. How does this fact affect them as expressed in their writings?

Question

I need to answer this before tomorrow

Answer 1

Amy Tan in "Mother Tongue" and Richard Rodriguez in Hunger of Memory write about the conflicts immigrant children face while trying to assimilate into American culture. One of the primary paths of assimilation for them is language, and both works tackle the impact that gaining fluency in English played in their lives. Both authors eventually thrive by writing in English, but both argue that claiming one language is superior to another creates a harmful bias against non-native speakers of English that results in a lack of respect.

Richard Rodriguez in Hunger of Memory illustrates how his lack of English fluency made school difficult for him. Once the nuns confront his parents and urge them to stop speaking Spanish at home so that he can gain this fluency, Richard begins to master English. What he gains in academic achievement, however, is countered by the diminished intimacy he feels with his parents at home, who struggle to speak English but avoid Spanish so that Richard can prosper in school. Richard sees the sacrifice they make, but does not fully realize it until he is much older. In the end, Richard understands that this loss of intimacy brought him success as a writer, but it came at a significant cost to him and his family.

The narrator in Amy Tan's "Mother Tongue" acknowledges her mother's lack of English fluency and admits to being "embarrassed" by it because she feels others see this as a lack of intelligence. "Mother Tongue" ultimately shows that there is no equivalency between fluency in English and intellectual rigor. The mother is quite knowledgeable, and those who dismiss her because of her limited English are ignorant.

"Mother Tongue" and Hunger of Memory depict immigrant children with bicultural lives. They are moving ahead in the ambient culture of American life, but they still have a commitment to the culture of their parents, especially their linguistic culture, where the conflict in both stories resides. Both authors experienced this conflict while coming of age in an America that did not always respective the languages they spoke at home. The protagonists in both works realize that the English fluency they gained made it possible for them to write about the harmful bias against non-English speakers and the losses such bias creates.