Language, Identity, and Cultural Assimilation in America

Those who immigrate to the United States from other countries are encouraged to adapt to the culture of the majority population — namely, white males of European descent. Language is the component of culture most immediately targeted by those who push for assimilation. When a person comes to the United States, they feel compelled to learn English and to read and write in that language regardless of what their first language may be. Those who do not assimilate to the American cultural standard are made to feel like outsiders, as if they do not belong.

Three texts address this issue directly: Amy Tan's personal essay "Mother Tongue," William Booth's article "One Nation, Indivisible: Is It History?," and the news piece "Newman Student's Speech in Spanish Sparks Criticism." Each deals with the role of language as a vehicle of cultural assimilation in the United States.

Amy Tan's essay "Mother Tongue" describes the two different types of English she uses in her daily life. There is the more sophisticated English she uses when discussing her texts with students and with literary colleagues, and then there is the broken, simplified English she uses when speaking with her mother. Tan explains that she became aware of this distinction only when the two types of English were forced to intersect. She was delivering a speech while her mother sat in the audience, and it was during this moment — while using her academic vocabulary — that she recognized how differently she communicates depending on who is listening.

When speaking with highly educated people, she employs a more professional vocabulary; in family settings, she relaxes her speech and even adopts some of the patterns of her immigrant mother's broken English. Tan reflects in the essay that she has come to view her mother's form of English as something distinctive and valuable, though this was not always the case. During her adolescence, her mother would have Tan make phone calls on her behalf and pretend to be an adult, because Tan's English was more comprehensible to those unfamiliar with her mother's dialect.

Tan also asserts that her exposure to this nonstandard form of English had a measurable effect on her academic performance in English courses. Curious about the dynamic between her mother's English and that of the broader population, she found that children of immigrants traditionally do not perform as well in English and literature courses as students whose parents were native-born citizens (Tan, 1990, p. 79). She argues this is largely a matter of vocabulary exposure: when standard, unbroken English is the norm at home, communication is not hampered by the language functioning as a second tongue.

In the article "One Nation, Indivisible: Is It History?" William Booth discusses the different perceptions that Americans hold of modern immigrants. This has a great deal to do with the fact that, instead of coming from all over the world, the immigrants of the modern era are almost exclusively arriving from Latin America. Rather than a melting pot of mixed cultures, there is a growing argument that Latin American immigrants are less willing to assimilate into traditional American culture.