Lea Ramsdell expands on the importance of Anzaldua’s demanding tone for hybridity by referring to the way in which it integrates language on the political spectrum. In the text, “Language and identity politics: The linguistic autobiographies of Latinos in the United States,” Ramsdell focuses on the way in which language determines so much of one’s identity. He argues that language constructs identity in many aspects and that identity is the ultimate deciding factor to one’s life. Ramsdell relates to Anzaldua’s expert How to Tame a Wild Tongue to represent the way in which Anzaldua has expressed her concern in a different aspect than many writers on this subject. Ramsdell explains that Anzaldua is demanding recognition of the hybrid language …show more content…
As Anzaldua expresses the cultural and societal barriers of linguistic oppression, Norma E. Cantu references the essay to elaborate on the consequences of such barriers. Cantu splits her essay, “Doing Work That Matters: The Impact Of Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza,” into three parts, each of which represent the redefining aspects of Anzaldua’s writing in regards to Chicano/a identity. Cantu depicts the way in which Anzaldua’s writing so distinctively represents the issue at hand. “In Borderlands/La Frontera she lays out the tenets of border theory, but it is not just an analysis and exploration of the geopolitical border where she grew up but the borders at multiple levels, class, gender and sexuality, ethnicity, nationality and even the borders we inhabit within our own contradictions.” In expressing the border beyond its true meaning Anzaldua allows for her writing to employ a deeper meaning. Cantu argues for the dynamic and radical changes that Anzaldua’s writing portrays and paradigm shift it serves to the prevalent problem among
Latinos who were raised in the United States of America have a dual identity. They were influenced by both their parents' ancestry and culture in addition to the American culture in which they live. Growing up in between two very different cultures creates a great problem, because they cannot identify completely with either culture and are also caught between the Spanish and English languages. Further more they struggle to connect with their roots. The duality in Latino identity and their search for their own personal identity is strongly represented in their writing. The following is a quote that expresses this idea in the words of Lucha Corpi, a Latina writer: "We Chicanos are like the abandoned children of divorced cultures. We are forever longing to be loved by an absent neglectful parent - Mexico - and also to be truly accepted by the other parent - the United States. We want bicultural harmony. We need it to survive. We struggle to achieve it. That struggle keeps us alive" ( Griwold ).
Anzaldúa's main point in the essay “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” is that Language is important and part of who we are. People should not be forced to speak another langue or criticized for speaking their own language. Anzaldúa says “So if you want to hurt me, talk badly about my language. Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity - I am my language”. (pp.416) Language defines who we are. and when we are forced to change out language we are forced to change who we are.
Gloria Canseco is currently working at The San Antonio Christian Dental Clinic. However, before she came to San Antonio she was living in Laredo, Texas. She had received a bachelor’s in art history and was volunteering at The Sister Saint Missionary. After, sometime there the nuns asked her if she would like to be the development officer for their nonprofit. When they first asked Mrs. Canseco to be the development officer she was not sure if she actually want it to do it. She told the nuns that she will be on probation period for six months with them to see if she was any good at it. Later on she came to love it. What helped her be excellent at her job was that she knew her community well and who to go too.
Torres, Hector Avalos. 2007. Conversations with Contemporary Chicana and Chicano Writers. U.S.: University of New Mexico press, 315-324.
Language is more than just a means of communication; it is part of one's culture, self-expression, and identity. “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” is a chapter from the book ,Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza ,written by Gloria E. Anzaldua. In this chapter, she talks about her Chicana life during a period full of immigrant controversies where Latinos living in the United States were struggling to find their national identity and a language to speak freely without feeling any shame or fear She explains the dilemma she had to face during this time in which she was often criticized and scolded for her improper Spanish accent. From these experiences she labeled these attacks on languages as “Linguistic Terrorism”. Anzaldua expresses her feelings
twin skin to linguistic identity – I am my language” (6). She describes how language and culture relate to identity. Anzaldua explains how the dominant North American culture is taking over the Latino culture and soon “… English and not Spanish, will be the mother tongue of most Chicanos and Latinos” (6). She goes on saying that the Spanish language should be used in order for it to survive. Anzaldua encourages Spanish speakers to keep their language value heritage.
In “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” a chapter of the book Borderland/La Frontera, The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldúa, a claim is made by Anzaldúa that “wild tongues can’t be tamed, they can only be cut out” (Anzaldúa 2947). This assertion sets up a series of anecdotes revolving around her increasingly frustrating life as a Chicana. Her intent in all of this is to highlight just how important language is to her culture.
In her piece entitled “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” Gloria Anzaldua uses her own life as a template for understanding the nuances and complexities of Chicano Spanish, its place within culture, both American and Hispanic, as well as the qualifiers it carries for those who speak it. First and foremost, she writes, “Chicano Spanish is a border tongue which developed naturally.” (Anzaldua, pg. 2) Chicano Spanish, Anzaldua argues, is a language of necessity, a language born of Spanish-speaking people living in a country where the predominant language was English. It is a language that exemplifies that very particular identity, a language that, Anzaldua admits, carries with it a certain connotation of being somehow inherently less. “It is illegitimate,” she writes, “a bastard language.” (Anzaldua, pg. 2)
Violent in the sense that one cannot fully express themselves in the cultures they identify with in society without the opposition promoting forceful adaptation of English. Both the American Society and the Mexican Society in her story wish for her to speak both English and Castilian properly. Anzaldua disregards her society’s expectations and found comfort speaking “Chicano Spanish” a language that adapts both American and Mexican cultures.Speaking English in our society today helps create countless opportunities and financial stability. With a positive societal view of the value behind the English language devalues a person’s native
In the extract of Gloria Anzaldua’s “How To Tame a Wild Tongue” the author conveys to the reader how strongly she feels for her language through her use of repetition, her word choice, her punctuation and her imagery. The author appears to link her text to the events that happened between Mexico and Southern USA around the year 1987 where people, (mostly Americans) discriminated against Latinos who moved into the USA illegally thus giving all Mexicans a bad Image and putting Spanish in the position of a “lesser language.” The text is written in a way which would make the readers feel empathy for the writer’s situation and that is caused through her 1st person style of writing.
In Gloria Anzaldúa’s chapter, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, she discusses the language and identity of people of mixed heritage especially those classified as Chicanx, Mexican Americans. Anzaldúa claims that growing up with two different sets of ethnic impositions greatly affect not only how a person communicates linguistically but also how they identify themselves. She develops this claim by first establishing that as a chicana her lingual development was always a delicate subject amongst both the anglo and latino parts of her life. The act of being pushed to assimilate into the anglo culture was no easy task that left her, as her book title states, at a type of borderland regarding both her english and spanish use. Subsequently, she examines
In the monograph, Celia Alvarez Muñoz by Roberto A. Tejada examines the prolific artwork of influential multimedia Chicana artist, Celia Alvarez Muñoz. Celia Alvarez Munoz was born in El Paso, Texas where she experienced the culture, linguistic, and historical clashes among the U.S. and Mexico border. She applies her Chicana identity and experience to illustrate both American and Mexican cultures. Tejada uses textual and historical analysis to examine and conceptualize her artwork. Moreover, he highlights Alvarez Muñoz feminist perspective, cultural background, political involvement, and innovative usage of cultural and symbolic artifacts that express her Chicana experience and the prevalent political social issues. Thus, Celia Alvarez Muñoz
The author expresses bitterness on the existing conditions in which native people such as the Chicanos and Latinos, who have a native language coupled with Spanish language variations, cannot express themselves in these languages while in the US. Anzaldua believes that people have been robbed of their language through subtle colonization of the mind such that even outside the confines of educational systems, the cultures such as Chicanos and Latinos fear using the language among them while in the US. The author espouses this view by providing examples of how she has had to pick several language variations to speak to her mum and her sisters, a different language variation for her brother in law, and other language variants to communicate with her friends (Anzaldua 77). Through this particular aspect, Anzaldua shows that immigrants into the US often lose their language, not only because of the systems in place, but also due to the personal pressure and quest to fit into the American culture (Anzaldua
Anzaldua was born in Texas daughter of Mexican parents. She was trapped in a culture neither English nor Spanish where she was being oppressed by both sizes. In paragraph 4 she narrates how she was punished by a teacher after telling the teacher how to pronounce her name correctly. In addition to the punishment, the teacher told her “If you want to be American speak American”. “If you don’t like it, go back to Mexico where you belong”. Extremely strong words that delivers a tense sense of racism, discrimination and oppression against Anzaldua. Words capable of destroy any ones self-esteem. Moreover in paragraph 6 she writes about a university that obligated Chicano (U.S citizen born from Mexican parents) students to take an extra speech class so they could lose their accent. This shows the huge oppression established by the majority to this specific minority. Anzaldua showing her discontent with society for obligating Chicanos to get rid of what they would call their identity. A dialect which combined English and Spanish words together (Spanglish). Jumped to the 1st amendment of the Unite State Constitution, Stating that what they doing is a violation of freedom of speech. “Oye Como Ladra; El Lenguage de la Frontera”. Is one of the few phrases she added on her essay in Spanish to make the reader somehow feel, what she is going through. This phrase means “Listen how barks; the border’s language”. A savage language is how Spanish majority considered the Spanglish Chicanos speak, a sort of language harmful to Standard Spanish. Therefore this minority couldn’t fit neither in English society nor Spanish
Schwartz, A. (2008). Their language, our Spanish: Introducing public discourses of ‘Gringoism’ as racializing linguistic and cultural reappropriation. Spanish In Context, 5(2), 224-245. Retrieved from