"Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan

Amy Tan writes of her struggles of having a mother who does not speak perfect English growing up. She provides examples of when her mother was thought to be inferior by society. Originally embarrassed of her mother's poor English-speaking skills, Amy later becomes angry at how rarely her mother was taken seriously.

The author catches herself in a conflicting paradox. She is standing in front of an audience, speaking in a language she never speaks to any of her loved ones. After taking in that realization, she starts to analyze the way she speaks to her mother and to her husband. After deciding to evaluate her mother's dialogue more thoroughly. She comes to a conclusion that even though her mother's grammar may be imperfect, the quality and depth were still there. No one ever bothered to look past the grammatical structure. She developed a new feeling or connection to her mother. She cultivated a pathos from this.

Her mother often feels an obligation to use her own daughter to impersonate her to get the same treatment as any other American citizen. Amy writes of an ethos example of her willingness to take a stand for her mother to retrieve crucial health information regarding her mother's brain tumor. Situations as serious as health concerns to as little to money issues. Amy has shown her strength and courage to ensure her mother is AN American citizen.

Amy decides to review the times she was not encouraged to take her writing, or even the English language, seriously. She starts to recall her test scores in different subjects in school. Math and Science were always higher than English. Knowing that her native language isn't English, how fair is it to be ridiculed of dreaming a life profession with use of the English language? She starts to use that as a comparison to her mother. Though the grammars between the two may be different, the context, quality, and meanings will always remain similar. Logos is used here through this technique.

The five-page short story has utterly convinced me that her latent argument has a significance and purpose.