An Analysis of “From Silence to Words: Writing as Struggle” Through this essay, Min-zhan Lu depicts the struggles she faced growing up in China while speaking English. I feel the paragraph that best exemplifies this struggle is one found on page 239. In this one paragraph, Lu expresses her fear of losing command over the two languages that she speaks, English and Chinese. She feels that she cannot write, as she is required to write for …showed first 75 words of 286 total…

…showed last 75 words of 286 total…of this struggle with language, Min-zhan Lu is trying on a larger scale to find her own identity. This is a task that appears difficult to a girl trying to please to authoritative groups in her life, her parents and teachers. My two questions are one, Lu places emphasis on certain words, how do you think that this effects her message and second, what do you feel is the tone towards English in the essay?