Stereotypes and Issues of communications

Stereotypes a subject I truly have a fascinations with, this started when as a very Germanic looking child I was made fun of for being Mexican, which prior to this provocation I was always proud of being Mexican. However, unlike many other people I have met while abroad I did not struggle or suffer from stereotypes that non-mother tongue English speakers did.

In the Essay “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan she brings up the issue that society has against non-native English speakers, through the trial and tribulations her mother faces on a daily bases.  A few examples from the text was when on page 3, paragraph 2 when Amy talks about how she would have to help her mother with business negotiations at a very young age because her mother could not be “understood”. Another example is on the same page, ad in paragraph 4 when there was a medical issue and the doctors and nurses would not answer her questions because they supposedly could not understand her despite her being clear with an obvious question about a possible tumor. It took Amy being an intermediary or “Translator” to convince the medical professionals to allow for further information to be given.

In the US alone a census taken in 2011 showed that 60 million people speak a different language then English at home weather it was their first language or not there is still a large population that are second langue English speakers. These people typically go about their day very normally and hardly run into any issues when it comes to functioning properly with basic daily tasks. However, on some occasions especially with major events like medical or financial striates, this has occurred a variety of times with my mother in the USA and in the UAE.

In the USA it wasn’t such an issue because most people are used to and hear lots of Hispanic languages and naturally are raised around it so they can understand and comprehend the message the person is attempting to get across. Or you can heir people who specifically speak the two languages they do, my parents did this with their account, hiring a Portuguese speaking accountant. This went very well however, when we moved to the UAE my mother had countless issues with bank tellers understanding her speech, this was mainly due to them constantly refusing to give her information because she was female. Though they stopped doing this after the first year, allowing my mother to ask for information, but this did not stop the underlying issue of my mother’s accent adjusting her speech. This ended up in many heated rants at tellers who were to afraid to ask her to repeat herself or just didn’t want to spend the effort because they might have assumed she was of lower authority then themselves.