Mother TongueMother Tongue

As A second-generation Chinese-American born and raised in the United States, Lisa Lin is at home with the ‘American lifestyle.’ Married to a perfect husband and expecting their first child soon, she is living the American Dream. Everything changes, however, when her mother loses the ability to speak English due to Alzheimer’s. No longer able to communicate with each other as Lisa’s English and her mother’s Chinese fall on deaf ears, she becomes increasingly concerned with her roots. The word ‘mother tongue’ literally refers to the language a newborn baby learns from his or her mother, but this is not always the case for immigrant families, and it is here an interesting paradox comes to light. As with Lisa’s case, first and second-generation family members often do not share the same mother tongue. Eris Qian’s short film Mother Tongue is a reminder that ‘linguistic nationalism,’ which dictates that ethnicity and language should be one, is not as simple as it is made out to be. (LEE Jong-chan)