In this short story "Mothers Tongue" by Amy tan really showed me how many people struggle on a daily basis with communicating with others who do not speak their language. Amys mother had a very difficult time communicating with people who spoke English since she was from China. Amy would serve as a translator or even in some cases pretend to be her mother. In some cases she was looked down upon and some people had a skewed perception on her abilities from her "broken" English.
This reminds me of a time when i was in school. there was a boy who came into my class half way through the year from Japan. He barely spoke English at all. Everyone tried to be friendly with him at first but they all gave up after he couldn't communicate back with them. I tried everyday and by the end of the year we were friends and he learned so much! He was so smart and he even helped me with my math work and i would help him with his English. All the other students believed that he didn't speak English that he wasn't intelligent enough to be friends with. I didn't think that was fair at all. I learned that everyone is smarter in some areas than others. I definitely believe that the way people speak affect the way people perceive their skills and abilities; even though it is not fair.
I think that everyone in life needs to have some sort of communication. Whether that is with a friend, relative, or colleague. My point of view is that, I think that everyone should try and learn english if their coming to America. I do think that it isnt fair to have a foreign take a state exam and have it be in english if he can barely understand it. I think that the state test should develop some short of way to have these types of tests in different languages
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