Nevin Estevez  

 Professor Vicars

Freshman Comp. 

          In the beautifully written excerpt, Mother Tongue, Amy Tan recalls her mother’s hardship with the English language, not being her mother’s first language, and how that impacted her and through her lens how it seemed to be interpreted by those whose first language was English, perceived her mother. She dubbed it “Broken English” and here I will dive into a bit of what that means to me, and how the term “Broken English” comes alive and becomes someone important to me; my mother. 

Now, my mother’s native tongue is English, and she speaks it fluently and is understood by many of those she comes across. But my mother and I both speak in ebonics. A rather urban way of speaking. It is a tongue almost inherited by your culture and upbringing, not by the letters you trace as a young child. Now, the disconnect between me and my mother is my mother doesn’t like when I correct her when she uses a word wrong or incorrectly pronounces her sentences. She gets frustrated with me because she believes it is her English, and mine is… mine. I guess? But what my mom fails to comprehend is that majority of the world doesn’t see that everyone’s English is broken. Everyone has their own beliefs and their way to word things. The disconnect in society is acknowledging the difference in language as not a lack of intellectual prowess, but as a form of individuality. 

See, in my eyes, if my mother made these slight grammatical errors in front of someone who judged her by her appearance and waited patiently for their antiquated and rather unfair pre-conceived ideas about who she was just by her humanly errors they just see her as some regular dumb black lady. My mom stresses that is unlikely. What do I know? Right? Maybe my mother could speak for herself? Maybe I was looking too deep into it. Maybe I dug looking for something only for that hole I dug to now become my grave? I’m being dramatic. I can’t lose my cool. Regardless of what I thought I realized I was fighting a foe who didn’t even exist. I had told my mother I was saving her the embarrassment of saying the wrong thing in front of the wrong person. But realized my mother’s English isn’t broken. She can speak English with no issues. Hell, she doesn’t stutter like me. My mother is probably a better speaker than I am. Ebonics shouldn’t be concealed or seen as “Broken English” it is just… English. 

Ebonics is a rather beautiful tongue. The way you speak, the terms you use, and the way you use them all matter. It is almost like your words define who you are and your words speak for you when you haven’t really said anything thought-provoking at all. It’s just all… free. No precision and restriction is needed. No formulas to follow and no judgment. Ebonics personified would be almost like a pigeon flying through the air. No, ebonics personified the speaker. The tongue projects its colorful ideas and stylish sentences. Dressed in flamboyancy and coated in swag; ebonics essentially gives me my mother what English failed to give. Liberty. And liberty not in the many, many words the dictionary boasts to those who dare open it, but the liberty to express yourself without fearing who you might be perceived as when the conversation is over. And like author Amy Tan I had a revelation; Language will never capture one’s ability.