Mother Tongue Unsung - StereoTYPICAL

Throughout the course of history, stereotypes have been as prevalent as fat people in the United States. Point proven. In all seriousness, stereotypes can be detrimental to society, often associated with racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination. Being Australian, I am the subject of a significant amount of stereotypes (all in the nature of banter of course), as many of us are in an international school, which I never ‘copped’ (an Aussie term meaning receive) back home. From this example among many, it is a fair conclusion that wherever there is diversity there will be stereotypes.

In Mother Tongue, Amy Tan writes about her experience with English as someone of Chinese origin, alluding to issues such as the importance of one’s native language, school career steering and most saliently (in my opinion), stereotypes of non-native speakers.

Amy’s mother, a second language English speaker, is a pivotal demonstration of these stereotypes in her struggle against native speakers. The fact that others “did not give her good service” due to her linguistic differences exposes one of the many stereotypical obstacles within society. It is their right that anyone, regardless of their English abilities, must be provided an equivalent amount of service. This is clearly lacking in this woman’s story.

In a situation as extreme as finding out the condition of her brain tumor, you can imagine the concern when the hospital refused to provide her diagnosis without justification, until, OF COURSE, the fluent English speaker turns up. We have spoken about relational activities, in which you change how you speak to different people or in different situations, however depriving someone of vital information because they don’t speak English is NOT one of these. It is discrimination. Despite the mum’s belief that she spoke “very good English”, she still was not treated with decency due to others’ stereotypes.

I find it insane that anyone views someone with broken English or difficulty in English to be any lesser than them. As a one-language speaker, I have the highest respect for anyone who can speak two, three or even more different languages, and swap between them at an instinct. I find it hard enough to get a 7 on a Phase 1 Arabic class let alone speak two languages in complexity. If you are one of those people, kudos my friend.

What makes it worse is that in this story, as a little girl, even Amy “believed that her English reflected the quality of what she had to say”. This reflects the illustration passed through society: English is the superior language due to the superpowers which primarily speak it; if you do not speak English, you are automatically inferior. The ignorance and arrogance within many English-speaking countries – such as that shown when we travel and expect foreigners to speak our language – has a serious effect on the rest of the world (especially foreigners living in these countries) and must be addressed.

This was a bit of a more serious blog than my others. I hope that it was still compelling and not as boring as Belgians (keep in mind I found this stereotype online #nohate). See you when you’re older.