Americ Home Of The Free?

Part One, Language and Identity, includes personal essays that explore the struggles of two individuals with issues of identity connected to the languages they were raised to

Scholar, Gloria Anzaldúa, in her narrative essay, “How To Tame A Wild Tongue’, speaks her many experiences on being pressured on what language to use. She then expresses how the discrimination made her to realize the ugly truth--that people reject languages that aren’t their own. She adopts logos, ethos and pathos in order to appeal toward her audience who is anyone who is not bilingual. One of the perspectives she takes on in her piece clearly expresses the relationship between language and identity and how it creates a conflict between her and the world.

In Richard Rodriguez's essay , “ Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood ” he writes about how he struggled as a child who only spoke Spanish language but lives in a society where the “public” language is English . He believes that speaking proper English will somehow help him fit into society and find his “true” identity. Throughout the essay he contrast the Spanish language identity and English language identity. As a young boy, Rodriguez finds consolation and safety in his home where they only speak Spanish. He feels that he only has a true identity when he is at home surrounded by those who speak the same language as him . On the contrary , he becomes trapped and disoriented when not being able to speak / understand the English language . He feels as if he is not part of “their world” and has no identity in society. By comparing and contrasting Spanish language identity and English language identity . Rodriguez's essay is an example that speaking different languages should not make anyone choose an identity . In fact being able to speak and understand multiple languages in his case Spanish and English makes the language a part of his identity, but with two different sides .

Throughout the writing, the author, Gloria Anzaldúa conveys multiple times how her relationship with her language and her history have impacted her. The author says on page 26, “Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity – I am my language” (Anzaldúa, pg. 26). Prior to writing this, the author was writing about how she and other Chicano/Chicana people were being unequally and unfairly treated, simply due to their culture and the language(s) they spoke. By saying this, the author shows that even if the people were only scrutinizing her and her people for their language, it is just as bad as being blatantly discriminatory toward their race, ethnicity, background, culture, and more, as she expresses that one’s language and “linguistic

Language, culture, and self are inseparable, as one cannot exist without the other. The structuration of one's consciousness stems from the language that one learns as a child, thus the formation of self is largely out of one’s control. As humans we live to experience, for our native language structures the world at which we inhabit and molds one's very modes of conscious awareness. Simply put, “who we become is not a matter of our own volition” (Encyclopedia of Identity 384), how we perceive and evaluate the world at large is entirely out of our control. Our development consciously is driven by the world we are brought into, ergo the language and culture we are raised with ultimately determines who we become.

The person’s identity reflects his culture and from where he belongs. People who migrate from their homeland to a foreign country struggled between native and foreign language. One has to become multilingual due to the demand of society to be able to communicate. In James Baldwin, “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?” And Amy Tan’s, “Mother Tongue” both authors experience struggle of language role and being bilingual in order to adjust in different societies. Leaving native language and being bilingual affects one’s public identity, personal life and inequality.

Michael Moore, author of the essay Idiot Nation, is as anti-Republican as they come and not at all afraid to express his beliefs with overflowing passion. Over the past 20 years, both Moore’s popularity and notoriety have boomed to new heights as a film maker, writer, and social critic. From winning Oscars and Academy Awards for his films and documentaries to co-writing 8 renowned books, Moore has not stopped producing ways of expressing his thoughts on the government and society to the general public. In Idiot Nation, Moore does an excellent job getting the point across that America is really a nation of idiots. This may sound presumptuous and ignorant, but Moore provides very convincing

I agree with your interpretation of Anzaldua’s quote “So, if you want to really hurt me, take badly about my language”. Since she makes it clear that ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity, therefore she can not take pride in herself, until she takes pride in her language. Thus, how are you supposed to know your true identity, if you are forced to change the way you express yourself.

Language is a very power thing; it can create change or destroy someone or something. Immigrants will always be made fun of because the way they sound. No matter how advance civilization will get, racial profiling will always exist. In the essay ‘Mother Tongue’, by Amy Tan, she has shared her experience growing up in an immigrant household, where everyone in her house talked a different version of English, and that she learned a different version at school. Growing up, Tan was many time asked to communicate with others over the phone, as if she was the mother, which made her feel shameful. That even though her mother speaks broken English, she still understands her well. These stories and experience help Tan prove that just because one cannot

The United States of America is known as the “land of the free”. But as most know “free” always comes with a price. Luckily, the price is worth a lifetime of opportunities and freedoms that other countries will never get to experience. America has immigrants naturalized every year. People from these countries come to America to pursue the “land of the free”. In fact, in 2014, “654,949 people were naturalized.”1

Language and identity are two things that are very closely related. In the excerpt of “How to Tame a wild Tongue” by Gloria Anzaldua, the author does an excellent job of explaining how identity and language blend right together. By hearing someone speak their language one could determine a person’s cultural values and their identity. In the excerpt Anzaldua says, “For a people who cannot entirely identify with either standard Spanish or English, what recourse is left to them but to create their own language?” By this quote, author is trying to show that it is very important for a person to connect with their language because the way someone speaks a language will reflect their identity and their value in a society.

"After Zorro, people spoke Spanish to me for ages. I 'm Welsh but that movie instantly gave me a new ethnicity." This was a quote by the actress, Catherine Zeta-Jones, when asked to speak Spanish in an interview for the Univision media network. This is one of the many results that come from of a complex reality of identity. Individuality is controlled by a social structure that labels a person based on similarities to a particular ethnic group. Society has the need to shape the ethnic identity of a person. They are categorized into a homogenized group defined by resemblances of their nationality and culture. This results in discrimination and oppression. The fact of a person’s identity has never been neutral. The way a person is treated by society, according to how they are perceived, is the cause of identifying and shaping an identity with social factors that provide a negative outlook on cultural tolerance.

The value and identity on which people mark themselves on is language; that's what I got to see when Gloria Anzaldua wrote, "So, if you want to really hurt me, talk badly about my language. Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity - I am my language." Living in a Jewish community, I get to see this every day, how the 'Jewish' language - Hebrew - is taught in all studies and schools; because Hebrews is who they are and how they identify themselves, and that comes before the country in which they live in. For some, people they attribute themselves as 'American Jews' and others refer to as 'Jewish Americans'. Stripping someone down of their true core is crushing their being, their existence. And it's with the strength that Gloria Anzaldua had was she able to write the problem that arises with people that are destroyed by others for unquestionably no reason; just so they aren't able to use their voice, their mother

Identity is subjective, not only to the individual to which the identity belongs, but also the way in which others perceive identity. This means that identity is not solely an individual event, but also a social one. Without social practices, such as identifying with specific cultures and norms, how would one know with which customs or cultures he or she identifies? People need to be able to see variation in the world to decide what parts of society they identify and with which parts of society they do not identify. One way people may be able to make informed decisions with which people or customs they should identify is by the languages they speak. Language is a means of expression. It is a means by which people can communicate and relate to others. Each language has its own varying culture based on the location of where the language is spoken, as well as the people who speak that language. Since languages and cultures are related, and cultures and identities are related, this means that languages and identities are related. If someone speaks a certain language, she will then be able to identify with the culture behind that language and realize it is a part of oneself. What happens if a second language is added into the discussion of identity? What customs are adapted? What are the outcomes?

As today we had lived in a multicultural society like the United States of America we’ll observe numerous bilingual individuals. We’re a diversity of immigrants that their selecting word choices resemble their social heritage and where these immigrants come from. The abuse is considered due to the absences of unacceptable or ineffectively vocabulary. Being abused is the clothing of dependent of others, especially their children. That’s were these children under the pressure and embarrassment take the autonomy of their parents. Tan’s give an overview of those who have English as second language face social consequences of stereotype and discrimination. For native English speaker is difficult to appreciate language because if all your life you have only spoke one language in this case English and you never had the chances to grow up with another culture, the only life you know will be thru out that language. Language is another way people can critique you and judge in some way. Immigrants get that critique more often, why, because their wide accent however, there are more susceptible to being abused and ignored by others. Our society take advantage of these kind of people in a way that drag them to be uncomfortable with their second language learned. Tan’s goal in “Mother Tongue” is show discrimination and stereotyping against immigrant’s due to the inability to use an exact and admissible English. With the language you can transmit intense emotions and