Maybe this has happened to you, Shmoopers: You're cruising around in a new country when, all of a sudden, a street sign or a strain of conversation stops you in your tracks. You realize that you have no idea what's going on. What does that sign mean? What are they talking about? Yep, nothing will make you feel more like a foreigner faster than "mambo dogface to the banana patch."
Oh sorry—what we meant to say there was "a language barrier."
In "Search for My Tongue," the speaker is up against that very challenge. She's forced to make her way through the world in a language that's not her own. As a result of her encounter with foreignness, she worries that she can never regain the familiar language—and sense of herself—that she left behind.
Questions About Foreignness and 'The Other'
- In what ways does this poem put us readers in the position of the "foreigner"?
- Aside from language, what other barriers does the speaker associate with having to use a "foreign tongue"?
- Why is the speaker so threated by having to speak another language?
- Do you think the poem ends on a hopeful note, or is the speaker's mother tongue doomed to lose out to the foreign one? Why do you think so?
Chew on This
This poem sets up a false conflict of foreign versus mother tongue. With the right perspective, they can live in harmony—in the same mouth even.
This poem's biggest success is in getting readers to consider what it really feels like to be a foreigner.