The world is filled with so much mysteries
It’s impossible to know everything 
That doesn’t mean that our mind still doesn’t wander around
Starting with why is it that when you look up at the clouds they are all different 
And how the clouds fade away and make the bright stars appear that allows us to see 
Why is that grass is so green in some areas, and dark in others, and softer and harder than other areas? 
How come there are days where the shy is happy and lets down its rays of the sun and other times when it’s hurting  it let downs its tears 
What lays beyond the sky, is there truly a universe, and is it anything like the picture we see

Sometimes I just stare out the window and see the people walking and wondering how everything moves and works effectively, and how it all came to be. 
Staring at the trees and asking myself how long it took for it to grow
From my apartment, I can see the train platform, I see all these people coming on and off the train and I start to wonder where did they go, or where are they going
Then look at the train itself and wonder wow as those things exist but how and who was so smart enough to make this happen
Just behind the train, there are buildings, tall ones and shorts ones, but how did they come to be 
The history behind the very building I am in, and who lived and stared through the same window I am right now 

How everyone eats but who and where did these food start from, how did they come to be
Cooking is like chemistry and math you have to add the right portion of each ingredient to make the food taste good but who decided this and how did it come to be 
How people were so creative enough to invite so many gadgets to help us sound the house and kitchen such as washing machines, dishwasher, different types of spoons and so on 
How all these formulas and rules are in place for everything but how did they come to be 

But the biggest wonder is how every time you see someone weather that is on the street or your phone or anywhere they are thinking of something different and how they are living out a completely different life than yours
It amazes that no two minds think a lot and how we can’t tell what other people are thinking 
There’s also the fact that we sleep and we all have dreams but we can’t recall them in the morning, and how is it that you can only remember some
There’s so many more curiosity that runs in my mind but sometimes we forget those too 

The Walk with the Moon

Following the light from the moon 
I stroll along the long narrow sidewalk guarded with cars 
Surrounded by stores and houses and car engines roars
When I get to a stop to check for traffic 
A car comes out of nowhere and starts honking 
The loud noise scares me and I ran to the other end 
Stopping to catch my breath I canceled out everything 
The only thing I heard was my heartbeat

I started walking again and heard loud music coming from a nearby store 
I started heading towards the loud music 
As I was walking through the loud music I see people laughing and eating 
I guess I was staring for too long one of the guy that was sitting looked back at me 
I quickly walked away, and the music faded
As I walked along the stores and road I read names and signs out loud in my head

I quickly approached a mini-park, with just benches
When I smelt an odd odder 
I saw a couple of guys sleeping on the benches 
So I quickly and quietly walked passed them and headed towards the bright lights 
As the lights got brighter my steps got heavier 

I stood along the edge of the sidewalk against the bright lights from the big stores 
I could feel the lights on my skin, the signs flashing everywhere. 
The streets were more crowded strangers just walking past you 
For awhile I was just walking and looking at other people and figuring out their styles 
At the corner of my eyes, I see this glistening light
When I turned to look I realized it was a full moon along with the stars 

As I was looking high up I came across a billboard
It was a digital clock with temperature
I waited for the time to come and was shocked when I saw how late it was 
It was like I got sucked into the time  
I quickly turned back and walked the same way I came

I walked passed the bright lights from the store 
The mini-park with the strangers sleeping on the benches 
And the load music playing from the restaurant 
Until I finally arrived in front of my building 

Just before I walked in I saw the same glistening light at the corner of my eyes
I slowly turned and looked up at the sky 
Except for the moon wasn’t there 
I turned the other way to see the moon had moved along with me
I saw the moon one last time before heading back in one last time 

Song to Story 

Song: you broke me first by Tate McRae

I thought he would be the one; I thought he would be the one to understand my feelings. I thought he cared about me, and that we bought the best out of each other. But that was before I knew how he was. Before you got distant before you stopped sharing things with me before you were thinking about some other girl. Even then I made up excuses for you, made up crazy things that could not possibly be why you haven’t been responding to me or ditched me. Then I suddenly realized that you weren’t good, you didn’t want me. You didn’t feel the same about me. Everything you felt about me was just temporary. Even though it was hard for me to get over you, a petty part of me thought maybe you lost your phone or your phones have been off for a couple of months. 

A couple of months later you called me back, asking if you could do anything you can do to go back to what we had. But I knew you were like this when things don’t go your way, you ask me for me to fix it. Me being who I am, I did, I tried. But I am finally over you, but you are suddenly asking for me back. But all I could think about was where d’you get the nerve to even ask that, even if you miss all that we had, why now? What made you remember, what made you realize. And so conveniently after I moved on from you. So I don’t care how bad it hurts, you can finally realize how much it hurt for me. You are the one that made me like this when you broke me first. You broke me first, I finally know that I deserve better, that I’m happy without you and thankful that I got out of this toxic relationship. Because for months, you were apart, and you were having your fun with someone else. 

I kept telling myself that you’d come back. I was in denial when I first heard that you moved on faster. I didn’t think you could move on that quickly, that was hard for me to see. It hurt seeing you happy with someone else right after you were together. Cause even then a brief part of me thought that was just a way for you to make me jealous, and that it was just a joke, it was all a prank. So I would wait for your name to pop up on my phone or text. Waiting to see you and your next move. To just hear your voice, to just hear you apologize. But I learned that you would not come back, you have truly moved on. But now that you want me back I’m speechless this is all I wanted for a while, all I needed to hear to go back to you. But I’ve moved on from all of your mistakes and all the actions you did after we broke up, made me realize that you are not worth it. Now you are just running back to me because you have no one, and maybe you realized that I was truly the one person who cared for you. You are coming to me with all your problems thinking I can solve them. But I won’t. 

I’m done making excesses for you, I’m done dealing with your baggage, I’m done being ignored, and I’m done being with you, and having to do anything with you. It was dumb of you to think I could take you back, maybe the old me would have taken you back. Now I just think how did you have the audacity to even ask. It doesn’t matter what you have to say now, all the sweet things and all the sweet memories we had, have said them before you did the damage. Before you broke me into pieces, making me question myself when it was all you not me. You didn’t even think twice before you hurt me before you broke me. So now you have yourself to thank for making me broken. Hard to imagine what you thought was going to happen after you purposely hurt me. Did you think that taking nice and remembering old memories of us was all that it’s going to take for us to be together again? After everything you made me go through your thought, I would open to you with a hug. If that’s the case then you were mistaken. I am better without you, even though you made me broken, a life without you is still better. All I have left to say to you is that “you broke me first.” 

Every country has its ritual that’s custom to their culture.  These rituals might be for religious reasons or beliefs that they have for a better life.  These rituals are passed down from generation to generation and they’re brought with them wherever they go. Just like that Maxine Hong Kingston’s mother thought it would be a great idea to cut Kingston’s tongue, so she can speak any language fluently and pronounce every word in any language profoundly. Maxine Hong Kingston is an Asian immigrant from China who was not only a writer but a professor who shares her personal stories about the struggles she had with speaking. Publishing “The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among the Ghosts” in 1976 with the first chapter being “tongue-tied”.  As some would say silence is the best, but for Maxine Hong Kingston it was her weakness. She began by telling the tale and ritual of what happened in China to make sure people would speak better and more fluently. But as she continues to tell her story, she tells the difficulty she had with adjusting to the American culture and fitting into American School. Her silence affected her and so many other Asian Americans, Comparing the difference she felt between American school and Chinese school and their culture. And what makes her story so credible is the honesty of her telling it from her point of view, not someone else’s. She’s giving us her real thoughts and emotions and her real genuine feelings of what she was going through. Throughout the story, she also shares how she was discriminated against and compares it to other ethnic groups. She also uses these similes and metaphors to emphasize her emotions in what she was going through to make us feel what she was going through. Truly targeting Americans and other Asian American immigrants and shed some light on how difficult it was to learn for some people to speak up and how different the American culture was from her Chinese culture. 

In the beginning, Kingston brings us back to while she lived in China and how her mother cut her tongue to ensure that she could speak any language.  But from the beginning, she was very silent and quiet. She tells us how even though she went to an American school and knows how to speak English she still felt uncomfortable, no one could hear her and they were judging her based on her silence. Doing this all from a first person’s perspective which is her perspective. This shows us the significance of this and knowing that she faced this makes her reliable. In the text it says, “I don’t remember her doing it, only her telling me about it, but all during childhood I felt sorry for the baby whose mother waited with scissors or knife..” This emphasizes how descriptive shares would allow you to feel what you were going to her mind.  As the story progresses, she keeps some readers engaged with her purse first-person perspective because it is enlightening and tells us exactly what she was feeling at that moment. “My parents took the pictures home. I spread them out (so black and full of possibilities) and pretended the curtains were swinging open, flying up, one after another, sunlight underneath, mighty operas.” From this quote, we can tell her emotions, and the way she describes what she was doing here is painting a clear picture in our head. I think hearing it from her perspective strengthened her case to show the struggles she had a balancing and adjusting to the culture. 

Her first-person perspective not only helped make us feel what she was going through but I show us how her silence affected her.  How hard it was for her to fit into the American culture in American School. Maxine Hong Kingston offers an itemized portrayal of the difficulties she experiences as a Chinese American. She portrays learning in an American school, the generalizations, and open segregation from educators and individual American students. “Reading out loud was easier than speaking because we did not have to make up what to say, but I stopped often, and the teacher would think I’d gone quiet again. I could not understand “I.” The Chinese “I” had seven strokes, intricacies. How could the American “I,” assuredly wearing a hat like the Chinese, have only three strokes, the middle so straight?” From this quote, we can tell that she was struggling. She had a hard time speaking English. The boys who were so well behaved in the American school played tricks on them and talked back to them. The girls were not mute. They screamed and yelled during recess. Nobody was afraid of children hurting themselves or of children hurting school property.” Here she’s comparing And throwing shade at the American System because of all the things that they can do that they don’t do in the Chinese School which makes the kids more comfortable. All of this brings us back to the fact that she wasn’t comfortable in the American setting and it was hard for her to fit in because of how different it was from what you were used to hence why she struggled. 

The most important part of her story was struggling to speak.  Even in her native language, it was hard for her. She was always quiet and afraid of what she would say,  and even when she spoke it’s silent and people rarely heard her so they asked to repeat and from that, she just got discouraged and annoyed.  This is ironic compared to when she said at the beginning of her story about getting her tongue cut so she can speak better in any language, and it wasn’t just her it was a lot of other Asian immigrants that were going through the same thing.  That didn’t help when the teachers and other people looked at you differently and discriminated against you because of the way you couldn’t speak up. The general tone of the content is made by the accentuation made by Kingston on the attributes of the tussle felt during perusing by the utilization of different sayings. Remarkably, she was experiencing mental torment because of her status of trouble and dismay. She doesn’t comprehend why she needed to experience a custom that has made her life trouble in an American school. To her mom, it was important to experience the cut of the tongue even though she doesn’t comprehend why other youngsters were not cut.  But it’s a sadistic and hopeless tone when she speaks about her struggle of speaking up. “… I became silent. Dumbness—a shame—still cracks my voice in two, even when I want to say “hello” casually, or ask a simple question in front of the check-out counter, or ask directions of a bus driver. I stand frozen, or I hold up the line with the complete, grammatical sentence that comes squeaking out at impossible length.”  Speaking was just so hard for her,  she struggled to speak. It didn’t matter it could have been the smallest thing but she could have asked because she was afraid and it scared her. “During the first silent year, I spoke to no one at school, did not ask before going to the lavatory, and flunked kindergarten. My sister also said nothing for three years, silent in the playground and silent at lunch. There were other quiet Chinese girls not in our family, but most of them got over it sooner than we did. I enjoyed the silence.” This shows us how much she didn’t realize how much who’s speaking was affecting her. She knew she was silent, and she flunked kindergarten but she didn’t think it was a big deal because of what she was taught in Chinese School.  and she wasn’t the only one going through this. Some of her other Chinese friends and most Asian girls preferred to stay quiet because they just felt they didn’t fit in and it was best to be quiet. Please really show how helpless she was; it was just something she couldn’t fix because something that was built inside of her. The tone that she used to describe how she felt when talking and speaking made her feel helpless because if she didn’t know what to do because it was just something she couldn’t fix. 

I emphasize her tone and her perspective with all the similes and metaphors in the diction she uses to back up her emotions and her experience so we can live through what she went through. She uses metaphors and similes not only to compare the discrimination she faced but how she connected herself to other races. We can feel her powerful voice in her writing when she’s talking about the American girls’ accounts and how it’s the same to the boys. While in the Chinese culture they intend the girls to stay silent. This discernment makes the Chinese girls calm since that is anticipated from them by their public. The words she uses while depicting her circumstance makes her benefit compassion from that aided her major topic. “We Chinese can’t sing ‘land where our fathers died.’” She argued with me about politics, while I meant because of curses. But how can I have that memory when I couldn’t talk? My mother says that we, like the ghosts, have no memories.” As shown here Kingston was getting discriminated against and told that she can’t sing because of hair culture, and in the metaphor, she uses to call out Americans as “ghosts” to highlight how they viewed Americans and how much they’re different from them. “She sounded as if she were trying to sing through weeping and strangling. When it was my turn, the same voice came out, a crippled animal running on broken legs. You could hear splinters in my voice, bones rubbing jagged against one another.” The amount of metaphors, similes, and descriptions used here Not only helps us sort of know what she’s sounding like but it gives a more in-depth view of what she thinks she sounds like when she’s speaking, even in her own culture and language. Through the use of these metaphors diction and similes could feel what she’s going through and help us picture and imagine the struggle she was facing and how she saw herself. 

Throughout this entire story, we have experienced what Kingston was going through and struggling through as a child.  We get to see what happens and what she has to go through.  How she wasn’t able to speak and others not because she wasn’t good at it was because of her personality and how she was brought up. Through the use of her metaphor diction and similes paints a clear picture of the experience and know-how she saw herself.  The way she used her help with tone to show her struggles. And her writing from her perspective in the first-person point of view showed us it investigates the Chinese social legacy, which contrasts, from the American one. The language obstruction is a significant concern brought out by Kingston in her battle to articulate words accurately. Who’s the beginning of the story? You think she’s going to be this great speaker and this brave person but it’s shown such irony because even if in China you do this ritual to be better and speaking it doesn’t mean that you’re going to be a great speaker in any language. And anyone who’s American or an Asian- immigrant who is reading this will understand her experience and feel for her,  because of the emotion that she tied into her story. 

I was only 2 years old when I came to America with my parents.  They thought it was best if I learned English first then my native language. My parents didn’t speak English back then, maybe my dad spoke some basic English. I learned English from watching T. V and my uncle. I caught on pretty quickly since everything is in English, but my parents had taught me some words in Bangla which is my native language; I wasn’t able to speak in full sentences though. It wasn’t until kindergarten when I learned my native language when I went back to Bangladesh to visit for 2 months. Until then, I couldn’t even pronounce my last name correctly. But when I learned my native language, it was difficult for me to speak English; it was like I forgot how to speak English. School was hard at first, I stuttered and mixed a lot of Bangali words with English. Eventually, as I settled in I learned how to speak English fluently again, but I had to speak my native language at home with my parents. I had to balance and learn how to speak both languages and balance both cultures.

Balancing both cultures was very difficult since the morals between western cultures were so different from my parent’s morals. My parents are traditional and very old fashioned. They expect their children to obey and never go against their morals because they think it’s the only right ones. This had made me have a hard time making friends, or questioning higher authority because I always thought adults were never wrong and you can never go against an adult. They also told me who I can be friends with and how other specific races were “bad” and not like us, so they would only influence me to do horrible things. At the time I was young. I believed everything they said. They installed this fear inside of me, and every time I would try to do something that my parents didn’t want me to do, this loud voice in my head would consciously stop me. Over time, that voice in my head became distant and since elementary school, I have become “rebellious,” according to my parents. And a big part of that was the environment I was in at school. I was in a diverse setting and I had to speak for myself. I guess that made me question my parent’s morals because they made little sense. But I don’t think my parents were wrong because they were only teaching me what they were taught.

My parent’s English has gotten way better since we first moved here but they still speak with a heavy accent and broken English. I still need to translate things for them from time to time. Because of this I always had difficulty with reading comprehension, spelling, and writing. Not that I wouldn’t understand the reading, I did, but I wasn’t able to be a critical thinker and make inferences about the story. Therefore, my reading and writing grades were always lower than my math and science grades. Every time I used to look at a reading package it looked all jumbled and letters were just floating, which discouraged me to read. Even though my mom made me read a lot of books because I wasn’t good at reading, it never interested me. I was more of a math and science person because there were fewer words and less room for error. 

I was also an ESL student until the fourth grade which is a special program that gives special privileges because English is their second language. Funny thing is that English was never my second language, it was my first. I never knew why I was put into this program in the first place or when I just remember from 2nd grade that I got special treatment than the other kids, and I was in a slightly slow class. And the only way out of this program is by taking this exam to determine if I was a native English speaker. This is very unfortunate because to this day I can only read, write, and speak English, while I can barely speak my native language. I kind of sacrificed learning and sort of accepting my culture so I can fit into a one that doesn’t want me to be part of theirs. It wasn’t until middle school where I got better in reading and writing and learned to manage both languages better, and where I felt more comfortable writing and wrote better. But I still can’t speak my native language fluently, I speak Bengali when it’s necessary, and with my parents and family members, it’s also broken and combined with a lot of English. I’m not proud of it when I’m at a family gathering or a cultural event. People mock me because of my Bengali they think I sound to white, and my western culture thinks I’m too brown.

My parent’s broken English has affected me, but it affected my parents more. People have a hard time understanding what my parents are saying and they do not take them seriously. I always hear people mocking my parents for their broken English. What they don’t realize is that even if my parents don’t understand them mocking them, I do. There was this one specific moment where my parents went to the dentist’s office and they bought us with them. My mom was telling the reception lady about the problems she has been having and how she hasn’t gone to the dentist for a while. Her exact words were, “[pointing to her teeth] Here hurt, and when brushing teeth blood [showing hands movements], when eating cold food hurting. I have no come to dentist for 5-6 years.” 

They took her information and bought her in. When she was in I heard the nurses or assistants imitating her accent and broken language and hysterically laughing. And I just sat in this chair listening to it all but didn’t dare to stand up to them because of the language that’s spoken at home, it’s difficult for me to speak in public, cause I think people will mock me the same way they mock my parents even though I speak “standard” English with no accent.

Even now I have trouble speaking in front of a crowd my anxiety takes over and my palms are sweating, my stomach feels horrible, and I stutter on easy words in sentences. It is a little better from the form and how I’m more comfortable speaking to other people and making more friends but my public speaking in front of classmates or an enormous crowd. The big part of this was the way my parents got mocked because of their accent and their way of speaking English. That loud voice started playing again in my head except it wasn’t to obey my parents; it was what other people had to say. Nobody mocked me yet but I still felt the pain because my parents had to go through it daily. My story is so similar to Amy Tan’s story in Mother’s Tongue, I can relate to what she went through because I go through something Identical. This goes to show that so many other people go through the same thing that I go through. Even though my parents speak broken English, I’m so grateful for the life that they’d given me, and my parents’ broken English always reminds me of my roots and where I’m originally from.  It doesn’t make them any less important than anyone who speaks regular Standard English.

There are so many cultures and diversity, we know America for its cultural diversity. People from all over the world come to the U. S because it’s seen as this magical place where dreams come true, and where people can come to live a better life, they would have not had in their home country.  All these cultures result in multiple languages that are being spoken. Once you come here, adapt to the American culture so you can fit in. However, not everyone is welcoming to immigrants or anyone that they don’t share the same culture who doesn’t and doesn’t fit the standard English principles.  This may be because of the language they speak even if they do speak English for their accent or broken English, we see them as unintelligent and non-American. They are not seen as Americans, because of this they get taunted and not taken seriously. Society puts every one of these parts on sexual orientations and what is typical and what they can or can’t do. This is also why individuals are so centered on fitting that they overlook their way of life. I’ll prove that culture and society can have a huge effect on your language and your life. Culture can influence us and our language and how we carry on with our day by day life. Society can sway our language and individuals. I felt going through this issue and so many of my friends and family. This is something that is not spoken about but happens to so many of us. 

America has a lot of cultures, many people speak English or one form of English whether that be slang or broken because it’s the first language of the U.S. But about the people that just immigrated to the U.S and don’t know English. This affects children and students that come to America as well and have to adjust to the new American style of learning. Even though they will eventually adjust to the system, in the process they will get made fun of by their classmates and are unintelligent. They will be treated differently, for example, they put some students into classes for extra help, just because they are immigrants though they might not need it. They put a lot of them into an ESL class which is a class for second language speakers when they know how to speak good English. Others that are placed into this program usually have the pressure of learning how to speak English. The culture and society make them alter their way of life, the way they speak how they learn so they can fit into the typically American society. In the article written by Ani Derderian-Aghajanian and Wang Cong Cong both professors at Washington State University, How Culture Affects on English Language Learners’ (ELLs) Outcomes, with Chinese and Middle Eastern Immigrants states, “Literacy is grounded in specific cultural values (Li, 2003). Li shows that immigrant Chinese students’ literacy and lifeways, embedded in heritage cultural values, are not congruent with the school culture which confirms that cultural discontinuity explains, in part, widespread minority school failure. As Packard (2001) indicates, children from immigrant Chinese families experience an intergenerational, intercultural gap with parents in terms of language and traditions.” (2) This is an account of someone that went through this. Many immigrant families Chinese and Middle Eastern immigrants face unique challenges because of language barriers and the stereotypes of society, their culture shapes them and their education. This language barrier affects their education. People from one culture go through so many struggles because they have to adjust the way they learn and the lifestyle of your life. Adding on to the adopt an authoritative, and informative tone that makes their claims stronger. Another article that was written by Ming-Mu Kuo and Cheng-Chieh Lai who are Assistant professors, and students at A&M University was Linguistics across Cultures: The Impact of Culture on Second Language Learning, explains that “ language is also a social institution, both shaping and being shaped by society (Armour-Thomas & Gopaul-McNicol, 1998). This means that language is not an independent construct but social practice both creating and being created by the structures and forces of social institutions within which we live and function. Certainly, language cannot exist in a vacuum and there is an inevitable kind of “transfusion” at work between language and culture.”(2) Demonstrating how education affects people who speak a different second language. Which represents culture and language and the usage of instructional systems for training the second language through culture to improve understudies’ etymological cognizance. Language isn’t just the result of culture, yet additionally is the image of culture. With their formal and profoundly diagnostic tone. Education can affect the way you live your life, the way society portrays you. All prove that language affects the way we live and learn. 

Education is not the only thing that gets affected by language that affects our daily life. People get mocked by society just because they don’t fit in. People from different backgrounds come to America to live a better life where they can follow their culture but still live within society. But society influences people to change their culture, the language they speak to join the “standard” way. People who don’t speak proper English get seen as unamerican, they are seen as an outcast. Because of the language they speak, their broken language is seen as unamerican. In an article by Stanford News called The Power of Language: How words shape people, culture? Stanford news states that “Language can play a big role in how we and others perceive the world, and linguists work to discover what words and phrases can influence us, unknowingly. Linguistics scholars seek to determine what is unique and universal about the language we use, how it is acquired, and the ways it changes. They consider language as a cultural, social, and psychological phenomenon.” (1) Explaining how language is not an independent construct but social practice both creating and being created by the structures and forces of social institutions within which we live and function. People encode messages, the meanings they have for messages, and the conditions and circumstances under which various messages may or may not be sent, noticed, or interpreted. The Relationship between Language and Culture Defined by Daily Translation tells us, “Linguistic relativity, it states that the way people think of the world is influenced directly by the language that the people used to discuss it. Anthropologist-linguist Edward Sapir of the United States said that the language habits of specific groups of people built the actual world. He further added that no two languages are similar in such a way that they would represent one society.” (1) As it describes here, it tells us how cultures are different. How the language you speak can affect the way you think the way you live. Society and other environmental factors affect and change you, even though the language will never change your personality. This going on and proving how culture takes a toll on us, and our language. 

I’ve gone through an identity crisis if you may say. You can say that society had a lot to do with that. Coming from South Asian descent, there was pressure from my parents to follow the culture that my parents grew up in, and in time I would pass the same culture to the future generations. But when I’d go to school things would change, I would try to fit in with the rest of the kids so I don’t get fun, but there were times even though my best efforts I would get made fun of because I have worn or done something that is not seen or done in American culture. Not just that, but because of this I learned how to speak English fluently and not my home language but people still made fun of me. Because of the language barrier at home, I struggled a lot in my elementary school years with English, because I wouldn’t quite understand or just couldn’t connect the ideas. I’ve also seen my parents go out to society with the little and broken English they know and not getting taken seriously, or completely ignored. Since they have a heavy accent they were seen as outcasts. But they too had to change that, allowing society and that culture infiltrate and change them. Someone else that also went through a similar thing is Amy Tan. In her piece of Mother’s Tongue, she tells us the experiences she went through, and what her mom had to go through because of her mom’s broken English, and that affected her. “I think my mother’s English almost affected limiting my possibilities in life. Sociologists and linguists probably will tell you that a person’s developing language skills are more influenced by peers. But I think the language spoken in the family, especially in immigrant families which are more insular, plays a large role in shaping the language of the child. And I believe that it affected my results on achievement tests, I.Q. tests, and the SAT. While my English skills were never judged as poor, compared to math, English could not be considered my strong suit.” (3) Coming back to education, the difference between cultures can and can affect their education. Especially in reading or writing because of the two cultures that you are used to, and two types of English. Society also targeted her mother because of her broken English. Even though her mom understood and could speak, just because she spoke with an accent she was not taken seriously. “You should know that my mother’s expressive command of English belies how much she understands. She reads the Forbes report, listens to Wall Street Week, converses daily with her stockbroker, reads all of Shirley MacLaine’s books with ease–all kinds of things I can’t understand. Yet some of my friends tell me they understand 50 percent of what my mother says. Some say they understand 80 to 90 percent. Some say they understand none of it as if she were speaking pure Chinese. But to me, my mother’s English is clear, perfectly natural” (2) From this, we can understand that her mom struggled with her English not because she didn’t know it but because of the way she spoke it. Her Chinese language and culture affected her and that language barrier. She learned to adapt to American culture. To add one, in another personal memoir by Maxine Hong Kingston, called Tongue Tied she explains her hardships adjusting to the American culture, and speaking up. “I became silent. Dumbness—a shame—still cracks my voice in two, even when I want to say “hello” casually, or ask a simple question in front of the check-out counter, or ask directions of a bus driver. I stand frozen, or I hold up the line with the complete, grammatical sentence that comes squeaking out at impossible length.” (4) As seen here speaking was just so hard for her, she struggled to speak. It didn’t matter, it could have been the smallest thing but she could have asked because she was afraid and it scared her, because of the American culture she was in. The future more showing us how much society and culture affect our life.

In conclusion, as much as we don’t want to accept it, society takes a huge toll on our lives and it shows us how much the culture can affect your day-to-day life such as your language. I mean when you think about diversity; you think about the different cultures and languages that you will see. And it’s true but the people who are here know they had to alter something in their life to fit in, to adjust to society to survive. From the language, you speak whether you don’t speak at all or it’s broken it’s seen as unacceptable and not American. What they don’t realize is the effects they have on children and students with their education. Amy Tan, Maxine Kinston, Daily Translation, Stanford News, Ani Derderian-Aghajanian and Wang Cong Cong, and Ming-Mu Kuo and Cheng-Chieh Lai who are all credible people and sources have their studies and accounts that prove that culture plus society can affect your language the way your daily life. I guess many people don’t realize this, or just move past it, but it’s something that should not be seen past on. We should not let society let us change us, we should stay true to our culture, and be able to speak any way of English or any language and still be able to fit in and get along with everyone. 

Work Cited Page 

1. 1. Aghajanian, Cong, Ani, Wang Derderian, Cong. How Culture Affects on English Language Learners’ (ELLs) Outcomes, with Chinese and Middle Eastern Immigrant Students, Mar. 2012, ijbssnet.com/journals/Vol_3_No_5_March_2012/20.pdf. 
   2. Tan, Amy et al. Home Is Where The Heart Dwells, 6 Feb. 2008, blogs.harvard.edu/guorui/2008/02/06/mother-tongue-by-amy-tan/. 
   3. Day Translations. “The Relationship between Language and Culture Defined.” Day Translations Blog, Day Translations, 2 Aug. 2019, www.daytranslations.com/blog/language-and-culture/. 
   4. Kingston, Maxine Hong. “Tongue-Tied.” Tongue-Tied by Maxine Hong Kingston, 1976, www.humbleisd.net/cms/lib2/tx01001414/centricity/domain/2925/english_ap/tongue.doc.
   5. Kuo, Lai, Ming, Cheng Mu, Chieh. Linguistics across Cultures: The Impact of Culture on Second Language Learning, 2007, files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED496079.pdf. 
   6. University, Stanford. “The Power of Language: How Words Shape People, Culture.” Stanford News, 27 Aug. 2019, news.stanford.edu/2019/08/22/the-power-of-language-how-words-shape-people-culture/.