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I am a writer．I spenda great deal of my time thinking about the power of language—the way it canevoke(唤起)an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth．Languageis the tool of my trade．And I use them all—all the Englishes Igrew up with．

Born into a Chinese family that hadrecently arrived in California, I’ve been giving more thought to the kind ofEnglish my mother speaks．Like others, I have described it topeople as “broken” English．But I feel embarrassed to say that．It hasalways bothered me that I can think of no way to describe it other than“broken”, as if it were damaged and needed to be fixed, as if it lacked acertain wholeness．I’veheard other terms used, “limited English,” for example．Butthey seem just as bad, as if everything is limited, including people’sperceptions(认识)ofthe limited English speaker．

I know this for a fact, because when Iwas growing up, my mother’s “limited” English limited my perception of her．I wasashamed of her English．Ibelieved that her English reflected the quality of what she had to say．Thatis, because she expressed them imperfectly her thoughts were imperfect．And Ihad plenty of evidence to support me: the fact that people in departmentstores, at banks, and at restaurants did not take her seriously, did not giveher good service, pretended not to understand her, or even acted as if they didnot hear her．

I started writing fiction in 1985．And forreasons I won’t get into today, I began to write stories using all theEnglishes I grew up with: the English she used with me, which for lack of abetter term might be described as “broken”, and what I imagine to be hertranslation of her Chinese, her internal(内在的) language, and for that I sought topreserve the essence, but neither an English nor a Chinese structure．Iwanted to catch what language ability tests can never show: her intention, herfeelings, the rhythms of her speech and the nature of her thoughts．