Kackute, Egle
(2016)
Mother Tongue as the Language of Mothering and
Homing Practice in Betty Quan’s Mother Tongue and Hiromi Goto’s Chorus of Mushrooms.Survival Strategies and Identity Construction of Migrant and Refugee Mothers.
In:
The Migrant Maternal: ‘Birthing’ New Lives Abroad.
Demeter Press, pp. 56-74.
ISBN 978-1-77258-080-8
Abstract
“I am my language. I speak Chinese. Your voices. Your words. You drown
me out” (Quan 14)
–
says the Mother to her children in Betty Quan’s play
Mother
Tongue
underlining
the cru
cial aspect of mothering in exile, the language of
mothering
,
as a site in which the cultural/ethnic identity, the sense of self and
maternal subjectivity
intersect and
are negotiated. This chapter explores the language
of mothering through two fictional a
ccounts of immigrant mothering both of which
underscore
the tension between mothering practices and linguistic difference. It aims
to address this tension by suggesting that in the context of migration, the language of
mothering can be conceptualised as a
mothering and homing practice, which
functions as a structuring, creative force that produces and shapes both migrant
mothers’ and their children’s subjectivities. The chapter will consider two fictional
texts: the play
Mother Tongue
(1996) by Chinese
-
Cana
dian playwright Betty Quan
and the novel
Chorus of Mushrooms
(1994) by Japanese
-
Canadian author Hiromi
Goto
,
both featuring immigrant and refugee mothers who mother primarily in their
own mother tongue rather than English, the language of the host country,
Canada.
| Item Type: |
Book Section
|
| Keywords: |
Mother Tongue; Language of Mothering;
Homing Practice; Betty Quan; Hiromi Goto; Chorus of Mushrooms; Survival Strategies; Identity Construction; Migrants; Refugee Mothers; |
| Academic Unit: |
Faculty of Arts,Celtic Studies and Philosophy > School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures > French |
| Item ID: |
10305 |
| Depositing User: |
Egle Kackute
|
| Date Deposited: |
11 Dec 2018 10:55 |
| Publisher: |
Demeter Press |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
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