In her essay, "Mother Tongue," Amy Tan shares her discoveries about the different variations of English she learned growing up in an Asian-American household, and then reflects on these findings. Amidst the essay, Tan shows the reader that racial profiling still exists, even in a time where every person is promised freedom and equality. Not only does the profiling exist and occur, but it is also done incorrectly and inefficiently, as Tan clearly demonstrates it by surpassing any test that suggested she study medicine or engineering. In this essay it is noticeable that all the evidence used to support Tan's arguments are past experiences she had as a child growing up, speaking what is considered "broken" English . Several times throughout the essay, Tan makes references to how the English she learned is considered "broken or fractured, and it was only because sentences she formulated were not fluid like everyone else's" (Tan 35). Tan then tries to reach out to her audience by connecting with many non-United States citizens who grew up with the same type of vocabulary she did; this broken English (Tan 35). By doing so, she reveals the fact that even if it is not scholarly-like English, using the most appropriate prepositions and phrases, the idea is still understood. Many families in the United States have long meaningful conversations by means of this so-called "limited English, however they still manage to understand each other perfectly because that is how they learned the language in their own household" (Tan 36). The reason Tan refers to this topic is because she wants to open the eyes of people that are born into a household where English is the first, and usually, only language spoken. By doing so, she could actually show the native English speakers how limited and structured their own language actually is. As Amy Tan mentions at the very beginning of the paper, she is "not a scholar, however she is quite intellectua