The article; From Silence to Words: Writing as a Strugglenarrated by Min-zhan Luilluminates her personal experiences to demonstrate the identity struggle arising from a conflict between home and school discourses. The narrator grew up in China, attending a Chinese school uniform to the standardized Chinese language. Conversantly, at home her parents raised her to be educated and practice the English language. “I knew she was referring to the way we had been brought up in the midst of two conflicting worlds – the world of home, dominated by the ideology of the Western humanistic tradition, and the world of a society dominated by Mao Tsetung’s Marxism” (pg 437). The significantly different worlds of which she lived during a single period of time caused the struggles she faced in her childhood.
“This paper is my attempt to fill up that silence with words, words I didn’t have then, words that I have since come to by reflecting on my experience as a student in China” (pg. 437). Min-zhan Lu narrative draws upon her childhood experiences to emphasize the impact and meaning underlying silencing speech. “Constantly having to switch back and forth between the discourse of home and school made me sensitive and self- conscious about the struggle I experienced every time I had to read, write, or think in either discourse” (Pg 438). Min-zhan Lu demonstrates the negative feelings of insecurity she suffered from while attending Chinese school. Standardized Chinese was unnatural and out of her comfort zone which required more thinking and the fear of mispronouncing words as it wasn’t practiced at home like her classmates.“First, my aunt was caught be her colleagues talking to her husband over the phone in English. Because of it, she was criticized and almost labeled as a Rightist.” (pg 439)”. The free expression of her identity was basically punished by the mainstream Chinese society and perceived as justified because it clashed with their viewpoints. As a result of this, she acknowledged language was silenced because of the restraint to speak her native language in an environment outside of her home.
Min-zhan Lutook her negative experiences as a childhood and transformed her life in a positive direction. “For in spite of the frustration and confusion I experienced
growing up caught between two conflicting worlds, the conflict ultimately
helped me to grow as a reader and writer. Constantly having to switch back and
forth between the discourse of home and that of school made me sensitive and
self-conscious about the struggle I experienced every time I tried to read, write,
or think in either discourse. Eventually, it led me to search for constructive uses
for such struggle”. (pg 437)She gained life skills from her childhood experiences because she took them as a learning opportunity rather than a determent to her life. “Being the eager student, I adopted this view of language as a tool for survival. It came to dominate my understanding of the discussion on the social and historical scene and to restrict my ability to participate in that discussion” (pg 444. The meaning of this viewpoint stating language is “tool for survival” is derived from her childhood giving her an understanding of how the world operates in different environments. Consequently, she has the ability to analyze the social and historical context surroundings to decipher her ability to participate in discussion which eliminates the possibility for conflict.
Furthermore,Min-zhan Lu reflects upon her experiences of being a student and China and how that shaped her as a college writing teacher in the United States. “However, beyond the classroom and beyond the limited range of these students’ immediate lives lies a much more complex and dynamicsocial and historical scene. To help these students become actors in such a scene, perhapswe need to call their attention to voices that may seem irrelevant to the discourse we teach rather than encourage them to shut them out”(pg 447). Now as an educator, she considers the complexity among students to eliminate the replication of her suffered childhood experiences where speech is silenced on other students.
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