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Addressing cultural diversity
Living with Cultural Diversity
Addressing cultural diversity
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Social injustice is a problem that take continues everywhere you look, whether its in schools or the work place. It serves as a serious dilemma which is overlooked. In “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” by Gloria Anzaldua, she tells the story of how people who speak Chicano Spanish receive these types of oppression in the United States. If you were to leave out her personal narration, it would be more difficult to see her testimony. Her personal accounts help place each reader in her footsteps. In any story, personal narration plays an important role; it allows readers to see the authors perspective and better understand the issue. Anzaldua describes the attacks she received while growing up coming from a Chicano Spanish background. She tells personal …show more content…
Towards the middle of the chapter she has more of a claim approach. She feeds her personal background which helps to build tension and then makes claims that involves the own Spanish community, then continues to give background into Chicano Spanish and where it originated from. After she makes her final big claim of how the language is being “terrorized”. She tells how she always wondered why Chicana females would be suspicious of each other, and she finally figures it out. “To be close to another Chicana is like looking in the mirror. We are afraid of what we’ll see there. Low estimation of self.” Since they have always been told to stop using their language, it hurts their character. Anzaldua even explains if you really hurt her personally, talk bad about her language. Her language makes her who is she. “I am my language.” If you can’t take pride in your language, you can’t take pride in yourself. She makes a big emphasize on how one’s language plays a big role in themselves. If you take one’s language away, you leave them losing some of their honor they have for it. She also explains how there are other ways to internalize identification, such as music and the food and certain smells. She claims that being Mexican is a state of soul instead of mind. You can’t and try to take away someone’s culture, its always with …show more content…
Anzaldua easily does this by the use of her claims and arguments along with her personal stories. When you see what an individual like herself has been through, you feel sorrow. She’s able to connect with readers and show that if you were in my footsteps, you would most likely do the same. She easily connects with readers who come from a similar background, and also makes it easier to draw the attention for the ones who don’t have a similar
While Anzaldúa makes great points about the struggles of a Chicana women in America, her arguments imply that Mexican people are the only people that have to adapt to American culture. While Mexican people should feel free to express their cultures freely, language is a much more complex issue; it is not simply solved by not accommodating to English speakers. English speakers must strive to embrace other cultures and languages, and understand that they do not necessarily have to speak that language to accept
Gloria Anzaldúa was a Chicana, lesbian feminist writer whose work exemplifies both the difficulties and beauty in living as one’s authentic self. She published her most prominent work in 1987, a book titled Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. In Borderlands, she write of her own struggle with coming to terms with her identify as a Chicana, an identity that lies at the border between Mexican and American. For instance, she writes,“we are a synergy of two cultures with various degrees of Mexicanness or Angloness. I have so internalized the borderland conflict that sometimes I feel like one cancel out the other and we are zero” However, even as she details this struggle she asserts pride in her identity, declaring, “I will no longer be
Race is a social migrainous issue that many societies are faced because it divides people and brings many negative impact between people such as hatred, heartache, or even bloodshed. Even though race is hard to recognize and rarely happen in American society due to the successful civil rights movements, some people of minority groups are always feel the pressure of the Whites privilege that heavy weigh on their shoulders which hold them back from success, for example, Yosso, the author of Critical Race Counterstories Along the Chicana/ Chicano Educational Pipeline, addresses the educational disadvantage that Chicana/Chicano students are suffered because of race and racism. Yosso’s counterstories have affected people’s
Wright left the South when he decided he could no longer withstand the poverty he had long dwelled in because he was an useless African American in the eyes of the racist, white men. Little did he know that this decision he made in order to run away from poverty would become the impetus to his success as a writer later on in life. In Wright’s autobiography, his sense of hunger derived from poverty represents both the injustice African Americans had to face back then, and also what overcoming that hunger means to his own kind. The Tortilla Curtain and Black Boy are two of the many books which illustrate the discrimination going on in our unjust societies. Through the words of T. C. Boyle and Richard Wright, the difficulties illegal Mexican immigrants and African Americans had and still have to face are portrayed.
America is a presumptuous country; its citizens don’t feel like learning any other language, so they make everyone else learn English. White Americans are the average human being and act as the standard of living, acting, and nearly all aspects of life. In her essay “White Privilege: The Invisible Knapsack,” Peggy McIntosh talks about how being white has never been discussed as a race/culture before because that identity has been pushed on everyone else, and being white subsequently carries its own set of advantages. Gloria Anzaldua is a Chicana, a person of mixed identities. In an excerpt titled “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” she discusses how the languages she speaks identify who she is in certain situations and how, throughout her life, she has been pushed to speak and act more “American” like.
My object of study is Hispanic women experience inequality in education due to the social constructs of subordination of women and Hispanic culture. Historically women have been conditioned with a patriarchal system, which a woman’s domain should be at home, to be a homemaker. The ideology of inferiority can and will justify the deprivation of natural born rights. During the progressive area and women’s rights movement women wanted to be seen as people, they wanted to have rights to own property, negotiate wages, legal documents, access to birth control, and the right to vote, those women who had the voice to deal with these issues were white upper and middle class women. During this time Hispanic women, amongst other minorities, were fighting battles against racism, segregation, exploitation in the work force, access to a good education, and oppression through Hispanic culture. It is not just a struggle to be Hispanic overcoming the inequalities within the education system but to be a Hispanic women within the education system has greater disadvantages. This case study will investigate what forces contribute to the inequality within the education system for Hispanic women in the United States.
Preceding her youth, in 1977, Anzaldua became a High School English teacher to Chicano students. She had requested to buy Chicano texts, but was rejected to do so. The principal of the school she worked for told her, in Anzaldua’s words: “He claimed that I was supposed to teach “American” and English literature.” She then taught the text at the risk of being fired. Anzaldua described, “Being Mexican is a state of soul – not on of mind.” All in all, the reprimanding she had to endure only made her stronger: “Until I can take pride in my language, I cannot take pride in myself.” It led to Anzaldua embracing her Mexican culture even more, contrary to shoving it aside. Anzaldua transformed her beliefs into something both cultures can applaud, and be honored
At the beginning of the essay, Anzaldúa recounts a time when she was at the dentist. He told her, “We’re going to have to control your tongue” (33). Although he was referring to her physical tongue, Anzaldúa uses this example as a metaphor for language. The dentist, who is trying to cap her tooth, symbolizes the U.S. who is similarly seeking to restrict the rights of minority groups. Nevertheless, the tongue is preventing the dentist from doing his job. Likewise, there are several minority groups who refuse to abide to the laws of dominant cultures and are fighting back. Anzaldúa also touches on a personal story that happened at school. When she was younger, she was sent to the corner because apparently, she spoke back to her Anglo teacher. The author argues that she was unfairly scolded because she was only telling her teacher how to pronounce her name. Her teacher warned her, “If you want to be American, speak American. If you don’t like it, go back to Mexico where you belong.” This short story provides an understanding of what Anzaldúa’s life was like. It demonstrates how even at a young age, she was continually pressured because of where comes
As I read, I related to many events and stories told from my observations in my hometown although I never had direct experiences. In my hometown, it is very common for the teenagers living in Sioux Villa — a poor neighborhood with a reputation for housing illegal Hispanic immigrants and “gringo crack heads and stoners” — to also face discrimination at school. Not only did they receive less attention from teachers, rules were also less strict and imposed much less when it regarded them in comparison to the more privileged kids who received more attention, support, and opportunities from teachers and other staff members. Just like Primo and Caesar did, I witnessed many of these underprivileged kids get thrown out of class for back-talking the teacher or making disruptive
Another author who gave insight towards social justice is Josefina Lopez. Through her book, Detained in the Desert, she is able to give voice to various Mexican American generations and convey stories of what they go through due to racial discriminations and negative stereotypes. Lopez depicts scenarios of how Mexican Americans are being victimized based on their looks, language, and culture; for example, “hate crimes against Latinos” and name calling such as “Beaner” or “Wetback” (47, 52). As a result of experiences like these, various Mexican American generations are being induced into taking drastic measures such as virtually abandoning their roots and assimilating completely into the American culture by neglecting to speak or learn their
In the essay called “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” written by Gloria Anzaldua, we can see how her diction uses code-mixing. Anzaldua uses sayings in Spanish, mostly used in Latino culture, which she translates and explains in English to help the reader to understand what she is saying. But, she wants to be clear with those who do not speak Spanish. If this were something that only Chicanos would read, then there would not need to do so. She wants to communicate her struggles about being Mexican raised in the states, who is not allowed to speak their own mother tongue.
Is it possible to make vital life changes to become a better person at heart? Who’s the one that can help you? The only person that will get you up on your feet is yourself, and you have to believe deeply to make those changes. In this essay there are many main points that are being brought across to explain the problems and wisdom that arose from Baca’s life as an inmate. It talks about how he was grown up into an adult and the tragedies that he had to face in order to become one. Later I fallow steps that lead to the purpose and rhetorical appeals of Baca’s essay. The purpose dealt with the cause and effect piece and problem/ solution structure.
For instance, they pronounce f as j in the Chicano Spanish. Chicanas grow up believing that people who speak Spanish the normal way is the wrong way. The reason they are scared to speak their own language to other Spanish speaking people is because Chicanas view everyone different of the way their Spanish is spoken. The author speaks about the troubles of either Chicana or Latina go through being confident in themselves while speaking the native language. Chicanas experience trouble while speaking to anybody because truly there is no language to go by, it is all made up. If you are a young Chicano kid living In a town where you must speak Spanish then you will experience some difficulties that will cause
She relays to the reader a time at a dentist’s office when the dentist told her that “we’re going to have to control your tongue”, as her tongue was interfering with his ability to perform the dental work. This anecdote introduces the main subject of her argument – one’s mouth and the language that resonates from it, while also providing a comparable and connecting example to appeal to her audience, as the reader has most likely sat in a dentist’s chair at one point. Furthermore, Anzaldua’s explanation of how she instantly related the doctor’s comment to thoughts of how she must “tame a [her] wild tongue” (Anzaldua 26), meaning her accent, makes it clear to the reader that the judgment that Anzaldua has experienced towards her accent has made her always conscious of how others view her – even in instances such as dental appointments. Anzaldua then initially attracts the attention of the reader by intentionally pointing out the harshness of the judgment she encountered to evoke pathos, as the reader feels sympathy when imagining Anzaldua’s vivid descriptions of how she has been treated in the past. She uses pathos to qualify her assertion that the acculturation process is harsh by referencing the First Amendment, explaining that this Amendment is violated when an individual has his form of expression attacked with intent of censure. Anzaldua’s explanation of a time at school when she was hit on the knuckles with a ruler for being caught speaking Spanish, induces anger in the reader as they see how poorly Anzaldua was treated when she was just a young schoolgirl. In a latter example, Anzaldua shares the story of a time when the teacher accused her of talking back when she was simply just trying to explain how to correctly pronounce her name. The insertion of the teacher’s exact words to her: “If you want to be American, speak
The contrast between the Mexican world versus the Anglo world has led Anzaldua to a new form of self and consciousness in which she calls the “New Mestiza” (one that recognizes and understands her duality of race). Anzaldua lives in a constant place of duality where she is on the opposite end of a border that is home to those that are considered “the queer, the troublesome, the mongrel and the mulato” (25). It is the inevitable and grueling clash of two very distinct cultures that produces the fear of the “unknown”; ultimately resulting in alienation and social hierarchy. Anzaldua, as an undocumented woman, is at the bottom of the hierarchy. Not only is she a woman that is openly queer, she is also carrying the burden of being “undocumented”. Women of the borderlands are forced to carry two degrading labels: their gender that makes them seem nothing more than a body and their “legal” status in this world. Many of these women only have two options due to their lack of English speaking abilities: either leave their homeland – or submit themselves to the constant objectification and oppression. According to Anzaldua, Mestizo culture was created by men because many of its traditions encourage women to become “subservient to males” (39). Although Coatlicue is a powerful Aztec figure, in a male-dominated society, she was still seen