Don T Give In Chicanita Summary

I was particularly interested in Camille Dungy’s “Tales from a Black Girl on Fire, or Why I Hate to Walk Outside and See Things Burning” which we read from the book Colors of Nature Culture, Identity, and the Natural World. I thought that our discussion in class of her poem was quite good, and realized it was something I wouldn't mind thinking a little bit more about. As I reread the poem, I found a few sentences that I still didn't quite understand what she meant by. In light of this, I have decided to write on what I believe to be her meaning. I wasn't sure why the fear of walking outside didn’t hit her until she moved to an old plantation sate. Why would it take up until then if she had been hearing her families history her entire life?

During the 1960’s, the Civil Rights Movement wasn’t the only one occurring. Struggling to assimilate into American culture, and suppressed by social injustices convicted by their Anglo counterparts, the Chicano movement was born. In the epic poem “I am Joaquin” written by Rodolfo Gonzales in 1969, we dive into what it means to be a Chicano. Through this poem, we see the struggles of the Chicano people portrayed by the narrator, in an attempt to grasp the American’s attention during the time of these movements. Hoping to shed light on the issues and struggles the Chicano population faced, Gonzales writes this epic in an attempt to strengthen the movement taking place, and to give Chicanos a sense of belonging and solidarity in this now

Throughout this essay, Anzaldua hold a prideful yet informative tone. When she tells her stories from her childhood, the tone changes to disbelief as she remembers all hardships she had to go through. Anzaldua gives another example of when her teachers mispronounced her name and as she tried to correct them they told her “If she wants

This poem is written from the perspective of an African-American from a foreign country, who has come to America for the promise of equality,

Women themselves perpetuate their inferiority; the author recounts a moment in her life when her emotional connection with her mother was interrupted abruptly by a telephone call from her brother. In this instance, the mother chose to speak with her son, the Chicano, over her daughter, the Chicana.

The poet instils this effect in the reader by repeating the instance in a chain format, describing how southern Africa was suppressed, and then saying “before that” it was her father being discriminated against, and before that it was her parents instilling in her society’s ideal for her. This chain like procedure of depicting a repetition of the suppression of self-determination by society gives the reader the mind-set that a change needs to occur to end it or it will continue with the

The speaker also chooses her diction precisely, so that there is clear contribution to the overall idea that the poem is indeed about the quest for change and longing from escape from the swamp. Two very different forms of description are used to represent this source of dread: once by the simple name, swamp, and

Yet, Chicanos chose to ignore the fact that they were putting race before gender as males still continued to tell their female counterparts “the gabacho is oppressing us!” (Zamora). Nowhere in Zamora’s poem does she point out the males giving a nod to making the decision to place the fight for their equal citizenship before that of a woman. Nowhere does it mention the further oppression of women by not only Anglos but also their own race. The men wonder why their wives are spouting their “’women’s lib trip’” and because of this arrogant blindness that women begin to fester a resentment towards their counterparts. They are writing the movement’s “thesis” or in other words they are doing most of the work and still they have no fruit to show for their labor. Why is it that they are claiming to be a Chicanos if they are getting

Activist, Gloria Anzaldua’s narrative excerpt “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” She goes into depth of ethnic identity, while knocking down walls of linguistic and identity down. How one would identify themselves while broadcasting the struggles any person with culture has felt. She uses ethos, pathos, and logos alongside all five senses. Making the reader feel as though they witness the struggles she went through if not witness then actually experienced. Anzaldua’s thesis is that language is a part of one’s identity. It is what makes a person who they and connects them to their roots. People shouldn't let others try to tame their tongue or cut off their native language; because once they do and are given that power they can disconnect the person from their culture and roots.

Although I can’t specifically relate to Gloria Anzaldúa’s struggle between her languages in “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” I can relate to her “kind of dual identity” in which she identifies with neither Anglo-American cultural values nor Mexican cultural values (1566). Being half white, half Chinese, I struggle identifying as either identity, especially because my mom (who is Chinese) never learned Cantonese and largely became Americanized in her childhood. It’s an uncomfortable position to be in when racial and ethnic identity are so significant in America and when I must interact with the world as part of both the majority and the marginalized. Considering my own struggle and the conflict Anzaldúa describes, it became clearer to me the way race relations in American not only marginalize people of color but train our consciousnesses to damage ourselves. Before I turn back to Anzaldúa, a novel I’ve recently read, William Godwin’s Caleb Williams has also been on my mind, particularly in Godwin’s portrayal of how police surveillance transforms us into agents of our own oppression. Although Caleb is a white man, he also experiences a split consciousness as his values and characteristics are whittled away by the paranoia of constant surveillance.

In Gloria Anzaldua’s letter “Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to 3rd World Women Writers” she delivers her message of being a third world woman writer and how there is a constant struggle between conforming to gain a voice in the world of writing and staying true to your culture. She pulls pieces from her own life experiences and works from other looked over women writers of color to make her point and connect to her audience letting them know she is part of their plight to be heard. In my rewrite of the essay “A Letter in “tongues”” I changed the delivery from a letter to a free verse poem condense Anzaldua 's message from Writing Women of color to just discriminated women writers just in general. They both focused use of pathos and ethos but mine leans more towards ethos pointing out that the dominant ideology of english writing being the only way to be heard as a writer that it is denying the voice of writing women of color and that is ethically wrong not what has happened to herself to invoke feeling.

As Anzaldua writes her experiences, she creates tone as passionate and determination for what she stands for throughout the whole the essay. She wants to convince her audience that language is not just a tool of communication, but an extension of an identity; “I am my language, I cannot take pride in myself (until) I am free to write bilingually and to switch codes without having always to translate”(211). Notice how she compares language and treats it as herself. This gives a sense of life giving to the language. Furthermore, explaining the quote, she wishes to break off the conformity that society compressed her into.

During the Mexican-American War the border moved, but the people didn’t. History has shown us that no matter how thick the border might be Latino Americans have a strong connection to their culture and roots; instead of assimilating, Mexicans live between two worlds. The film, Ballad of Gregorio Cortez gave us a perspective of two cultures; “Two cultures- the Anglo and the Mexican- lived side by side in state of tension and fear” . Cortez is running for his life as he heads north, while the Anglo believe that because of his Mexican ethnicity, he would travel south to Mexico. Throughout the film there were cultural tensions and misunderstandings; language plays an important part of someone’s identity, and for many Latino Americans Spanish is their first language. The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez also shows us that language plays an important role, and can cause confusion between two different groups. For example, Anglos refer to a male

In this Chapter I feel that Anzaldua is trying to get the reader to understand the differences and atruggles amongst cultures. The clash of cultures results in mental and emotional confusion. Living inbetween more than one culture, you often get opposing messages from these cultures. Sometimes when living within the Chicana culture common white beleifs conflict with the beleifs of the Mexican culture. They both hold beleifs of the indifinous peopel and their culture. It creates a problem that the dominant cultures views and beleifs are defiant to the others. This is very wrong because it creats the problem of one being superior to the other. This especially relates to the Mexican culture and white culture. This creates the assimilation problem when one culture is not accepted or considered below another.

The poem I will be analyzing is “Dry Foot Bwoy” by Louise Bennett. First I want to emphasize the importance of understanding what was happening in Jamaica during the time she wrote this poem. Bennett emerged as a writer during the process of de-colonization and independence for Jamaica. She played an important role in helping Jamaicans establish a national identity by focusing on what it means to be Jamaican, especially the issues of language, identity, and race. Bennett was writing during a time when it was important to establish a clear definition of what it meant to be Jamaican. While on the surface it may seem “Dry Foot Bwoy”