How To Tame A Wild Tongue By Gloria Anzaldúa

1134 Words3 Pages

No matter what background we come from, we all have some type of language barrier. The immigrants in America, forming and identity means more than just learning English and acclimatizing into the society. People who are born in a foreign country and immigrate to the United States of America (first generation immigrants) have difficulties adapting to the American culture and learning the language. Second generation immigrants usually have no difficulty in adapting but tend to have difficulties in learning to function between the two cultures (American culture and their native culture). A Chicana who grew up in South Texas to a Mexican immigrant mother faces a similar type of problem. In the essay “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” by Gloria Anzaldúa. The author expresses her feelings about the social and cultural differences Mexican immigrants face when being raised in the United States of America. Anzaldúa also brings to debate about the important social problems such as sexism, racism, and identity construction.
The author is narrating her personal history where she mentions the number of languages she learned and spoke and how her race, nationality and gender relied on the type of language she spoke. She divides her essay into small paragraphs by giving them a title so that it’s easy for the readers to understand. She has also given detailed examples …show more content…

The author states “Overcoming the tradition of silence,” (Anzaldúa 44) by this the author is trying to support her claim by giving a personal narrative description which giver her credibility. In the narrative she mentions the discrimination Chicano women face in their own society/culture. The author also points out “Until I can take pride in my language, I cannot take pride in myself…. illegitimate.” (Anzaldúa 50) The use of ethos in the quote shows that she is giving credibility to herself and also agrees that knowing many dialects of English and Spanish was very

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