Although Richard Rodriguez and Amy Tan both had a distinct perception of the importance of their intimate family language, they both had the same similarities of facing the struggles they perceived society required of them which was learning the English language. Both Tan and Rodriguez faced these struggles at different points of their lives and had to manage whether they would let the English language conflict with their family’s language. They are fighting to identify whom they want to be in society and whether they want to maintain their roots and language of their culture or adapt to where they now reside. Aside from their differences the similarities they both shared with each other was significant due to them being in the same position and deciding whether they wanted to …show more content…
One of the main similarities like I said was how they had both discovered the intimacy of their family language at different times of their lives. Amy Tan’s recalls one day when her mother was in the audience she noticed how Amy depending on the circumstance she was in she would switch up her English language. In Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” she said “all the forms of standard English that I had learned in school and through books, the forms of English I did not use at home with my mother”(pg.1). At that moment she realized that she had a whole other language that was personal and only used around her mother. As she called it a form of “Broken English” she would mix up words and phrases differently in a form that her mother would understand her and use the Formal English language