bell hooks Text Comparison

"I imagine them hearing spoken English as the oppressor’s language, yet I imagine them also realizing that this language would need to be possessed, taken, claimed as a space of resistance. I imagine that the moment they realized the oppressor’s language, seized and spoken by the tongues of the colonized, could be a space of bonding was joyous.”

From this quote found in her essay, bell hooks is trying to explain the advantages of having to speak multilingually in a daily basis based on her experiences of being a black person needing to speak a ‘foreign’ language as a way to speak to other people in different communities. Some texts regarding this issue agree with what bell hooks have quoted. One of those texts is a text written by Garry Engkent named “Why My Mother Can’t Speak English”.

This text explains the difficulties of his mother obtaining a Canadian Citizenship due to the fact that she has limited English proficiency. In this case English can be seen as the oppressor’s language as she is limited to speaking English outside the Chinese Community. English has also limited the mother’s ability to participate in activities outside the restaurant she works in as mentioned in the text. 

On the other hand, Garry have mentioned a couple of times about the reason of his mother still having a somehow limited amount of English capability. She believed that she would lose her Chinese identity once she tries to speak English and tries to assimilate to the Canadian community. She sees that without the use of English, she can live joyously with her son. Garry Engkent have used some Chinese words and phrases to reflect his mother’s fresh (Chinese cultured) thoughts. 

She believes on keeping her Chinese identity because she likes being Chinese and it is authentic to her. She tries to do so by trying to limit the use of English as it may have ‘oppressed’ her. Her husband, also mentioned in the text, also believes in this as he wants her to keep her Chinese identity as it may change her overall identity. This can also be seen when Gary Engkent presents us the younger Chinese generations in the community as they have limited to no closeness to their own culture as they have fully assimilated to the Canadian culture. I believe that she did not want that to happen to her.