Go ahead, look around you. Well, we are unfortunately taking part in remote learning, but do not let this serve any less of a reminder about how diverse the country we live in today really is. New York City specifically is one of the most diverse cities in one of the most diverse countries in the world. Every day, we see people of different color, ethnicities, genders, and people who have vastly different life experiences than ourselves. This is exactly what Safwat Saleem and Amy Tan express through their talk and article, “Why I Keep Speaking Up” and “Mother Tongue,” respectively. Each piece talks about the authors’ experiences and shares stories of how their own unique cultural backgrounds have impacted them throughout their life. The main purpose that they both conveyed throughout their pieces is that it is not easy to go through life having a different cultural background than the majority of the people around you. Despite them having a similar central idea, their pieces delve into their own experiences as immigrants. In the video, “Why I Keep Speaking Up” (2016) by Pakistani filmmaker Safwat Saleem and “Mother Tongue”(1989) by Chinese American writer Amy Tan, the two narrators highlight the importance of diversity by using rhetorical strategies. They each present how their difference in background has shaped their specific identities and do this by connecting in various ways to their audience, specifically through the use of rhetorical devices such as Ethos and Pathos.

The narrator Saleem uses Ethos as a rhetorical strategy not only to help his central idea, but also to connect with his audience closer. The use of Ethos can be detected throughout the Ted Talk with his deliberate use of personal branding. In the Ted Talk, he states, “I had a much tougher time speaking. I could stutter for as long as I remember.” He makes sure to repeat this and emphasize the significance of his background in hope of gaining the audience’s trust, that is, he talks about his experience of being an immigrant himself to prove himself as “worthy” of talking about cultural identity, clearly a sensitive issue. Saleem knows that with a Ted Talk with the title of “Why I Keep Speaking Up,” and adding a thumbnail of himself, a Muslim male, people with an accent or language barrier will be more inclined to watch his talk. Saleem uses his own personal experience to craft a narrative about how he felt insecure about his cultural affectations. This makes Saleem a much more credible narrator. Take this, for example, who would you rather have come out of a restaurant, a person with normal clothes or a person with a full white apron with a big, white chef hat? Obviously the person dressed in all white to resemble a chef will draw more attention, but more importantly be more credible as a speaker. This is the exact logic that Saleem uses to draw in his audience. Saleem emphasizes the shame that he felt towards his accent because he knows that his audience most likely feels a similar way towards their potential accent. He continues to build credibility by expanding on how this shame impacted him in his childhood. This sets himself up to give examples, such as how he previously made funny YouTube videos, but then decided to stop because of a few negative comments. Saleem comes off as knowledgeable to his audience by showing why he is the one that should be listened to rather than someone who does not have a strong language barrier and an accent that held themselves back in their childhood. 

Tan also uses ethos across her text to prove her credibility to the audience. In the text, Tan states, “I was giving a talk to a large group of people, the same talk I had already given to half a dozen other groups. My mother was in the room. I was saying things like, ‘The intersection of memory upon imagination.’” Amy Tan explains how she was speaking professionally while her mom was in the room. Tan’s mom was born in Asia and therefore did not grow up speaking English, but rather Mandarin. Tan, on the other hand grew up in the United States and knows how to speak fluently in English without a foreign accent. Through this personal branding, Tan helps build a connection with the audience by giving them a closer look into her upbringing. Similar to Saleem, Tan’s audience also consists of people who face some type of language barrier. However, in the case of Tan, her audience is much more catered to people who have parents or relatives that face this barrier. Think to yourself, how many of your parents were born outside America? Now, how many of you (classmates) were born in America? A large portion of you probably fit the criteria in which your parents grew up in a foreign nation and therefore spoke, what is called “broken” English, while you have spoken relatively fluent English. Tan uses the rhetorical strategy, Ethos, to her advantage by showing the exigence of her story. She shows how her background is from America, but her mom does not share this same background. Tan’s use of Ethos sets up the story by describing how her mother spoke “broken” English, but was still intelligent, further connecting with the audience and highlighting such an important moment in the text. By using this, it connects her with the audience and builds trust because of similarities between them similar to how Saleem built trust with the audience by showing that the audience is not alone and helpless. Therefore, despite both Tan and Saleem using Ethos in their respective pieces to build a more trustworthy connection between the audience and them, as well as sharing encounters that are relatable with the audience, they both use them differently to better show their respective purpose of the piece. 

The rhetorical strategy, pathos, can also be seen being utilized throughout the text for both Saleem and Tan. In what follows, Saleem’s use of pathos to impact the Ted Talk will be abundantly clear. Saleem states, “Hi, my name is so and so, what is your name? And I am just quiet, unable to respond. After some awkward silence, he says, “have you forgotten your name?’ and I am still quiet, and then slowly, all the people in the room begin to turn towards me and ask almost in unison, have you forgotten your name?(repeating)” Most people have nightmares about monsters, ghosts, and for our case, even failing a college assignment. However, Saleem describes this nightmare to show just how afraid and self-conscious he is about his voice. He uses vivid language as seen by the “have you forgotten your name?” repeating to show just how afraid he feels to speak to a stranger, much less, in front of the public. Hearing this would make most people feel empathy towards Saleem and would therefore connect with his emotion. Because the audience most likely also has experienced some type of language barrier, this connection of emotion would not necessarily only make them feel bad for Saleem, but also would connect to their personal experiences. This is exactly the objective of Saleem as he tries to show how something as minor as this can impact his everyday life. In the Ted Talk, Saleem repeats the phrase, “have you forgotten your name?” to further emphasize the anxiety that was running through him. Saleem is able to illustrate to his audience how many people in the audience would see their heart racing, start to perspire, and overall feel very anxious when something like this were to happen. Because many of us have gone through something similar, we understand the feeling and through the use of repetition, vivid language, and personal experience Saleem is able to set up his purpose better through this use of ethos.

Similar to Saleem, Tan also uses Ethos as a rhetorical strategy to build a stronger connection between her audience and her. In the text, Tan states, “my mother was standing in the back whispering loudly, ‘Why he don’t send me check, already two weeks late. So mad he lie to me, losing me money.’ And then I said in perfect English, ‘Yes, I’m getting rather concerned. You had agreed to send the check two weeks ago, but it hasn’t arrived.’” Despite this statement not standing out initially, it very much is a good use of ethos. Tan describes how her mother spoke broken English and therefore thought that people did not take her as serious, and this caused her mom to make Tan get on the phone to make a complaint. Because a good deal of the audience also has some type of relationship with a language barrier, whether that be through themselves or their parents, Tan opens others’ eyes to her situation. Because this text is catered to a specific audience, this narrows into the audience’s personal experiences similar to Tan’s. In this experience specifically, Tan expresses how she had to talk, “in an adolescent voice that was not very convincing, “This is Mrs. Tan.’” Tan clearly details how she, herself did not desire to do this, but how she did it because it was necessary to her mom and understood the shame behind having a foreign accent and what a lot of society will label you as. As a member of the audience, you cannot help but feel pity for the mother who is self-conscious of her accent and understands that people do not take her as serious. Similarly, you realize the pain Tan goes through to see her mother like this and take on responsibilities not of her choice. Think about it this way: many of you reading this have parents that are immigrants. If they can speak fluent English, great. However, the ones that have parents that do not speak fluent English, how many times have you had to speak to someone on the phone in replacement of your parents or even in person for that matter? I can remember ordering pizza from my phone since I was 8 years old. The pizzeria worker would think I am placing a prank call at first because of my high pitched voice, and so when hearing this personal experience by Tan, it not only highlights Tan’s story, but also becomes more descriptive and detailed in your minds as well. In conclusion, Saleem and Tan both use ethos to appeal to the audience’s emotion by bringing their experiences back into real time as well.

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