As young children, we are given certain opportunities and guidance to expand our knowledge of reading and writing. In certain cases, children have to work hard and face difficulties to achieve their goals. Two people who had to work hard to overcome their difficulties were Amy Tan, the author of "Mother Tongue"" and Sherman Alexie, author of "The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me". Tan and Alexie both had to overcome obstacles to achieve their goals of getting education. One of the obstacles they both had to overcome was their teachers. Another obstacle they both had to fight though was their language barriers. Finally, they both had to face stereotypes. Even though both Tan and Alexie had similar obstacles, Alexie's obstacles were harder to face.
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One of the obstacles Tan and Alexie had to overcome was their teachers not having confidence in them to be successful with writing in English. As an Asian American did will in math and science, but when it came to English Tan was over looked in school. In the essay, Tan states that "But those scores were not good enough to override the opinion that my true abilities lay in math and science, because in those areas I achieved A's and scored in the ninetieth percentile or higher(400). Tan was pushed into math and science but Tan challenged the disproving assumptions made about her by the school. .
In college Tan changed her per-med major to English major. Unlike Tan, Alexie had to overcome low expectation of education that came from Indians and from non-Indians. Alexie wanting to learn made him raise his hand in class to answer questions that was asked by the teacher. But most Indian children stared quiet. Alexie, states in the essay that "As Indian children, we were expected to fail in the non-Indian world (17). In order to overcome his hardship Alexie refused to fail as an Indian and continued to read as much as he could from his father's books.
