Language, Spanish, Spanglish, Chicano And English

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

Anzaldúa recounts her experience growing up in a community where her Chicana culture wasn’t widely accepted. She would be punished for speaking the language her culture influenced to create a language, which corresponds to a way of life. In Gloria Anzaldúa’s “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” the variety of languages helps her compare, contrast and define her argument of the distinguished languages concerning her Chicana identity.

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.

Gloria Anzaldúa writes of a Utopic frame of mind, the borderlands created in and lived in by the new mestiza. She describes the preexisting natures of the Anglos, Mexicanos, and Chicanos as seen around the southwest U.S. / Mexican border, indicative of the nations at large. She also probes the borders of language, sexuality, psychology and spirituality. Anzaldúa presents this information in various identifiable ways including the autobiography, historical/informative essay, and poetry. What is unique to Anzaldúa is her ability to weave a ‘perfect’ kind of compromised state of mind that melds together the preexisting cultures while simultaneously formulating a fusion of genres that stretches previously

The poem’s structure as a sonnet allows the speaker’s feelings of distrust and heartache to gradually manifest themselves as the poem’s plot progresses. Each quatrain develops and intensifies the speaker’s misery, giving the reader a deeper insight into his convoluted emotions. In the first quatrain, the speaker advises his former partner to not be surprised when she “see[s] him holding [his] louring head so low” (2). His refusal to look at her not only highlights his unhappiness but also establishes the gloomy tone of the poem. The speaker then uses the second and third quatrains to justify his remoteness; he explains how he feels betrayed by her and reveals how his distrust has led him

As a result, Anzaldua illustrates her hardship to the attention of an English speaker as an audience. Throughout the reading, she consistently switches from English to Spanish in many paragraphs forcing a non-Spanish speaker, such as myself, to look up translations an order to make sense of the story. An example of this would be when her mother expresses her disappointment saying, “I want you to speak English. PA hallar buen trabajo hablas ingles con un accent” (206). By forcing this task on the audience, this allows a sense of empathy and understanding of author’s struggles of what she had to go through growing up. She had spoken English but is still sadly looked upon from her mother due to having Spanish “accent”, that with this accent putting her through school is pointless.

The humor and seemingly-comedic personification used in the poem are very different than the theme, and serve as a distraction from the speaker’s pain.

As a reader who lacks knowledge of any Spanish vocabulary, coming into contact with passages written in Spanish is confusing and uncomfortable. Without a Spanish tongue, it is quite difficult to process and truly understand Anzaldúa’s message, as this foreign tongue presents large stumbling blocks within the essay that direct my focus away from the purpose of the piece. Sentences containing long chains of Spanish words, such as “Even our own people, other Spanish speakers nos quieren poner candados en la boca,” and, “In the meantime, tenémos que hacer la lucha,” leave me hog-tied and unable to properly read and understand the text as I find myself lost in the foreign string of Spanish terms. However, when the English translation is presented along with the foreign terms, the passage flows smoothly since I’m able to understand the words and their proper meaning relative to the context of the text.

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.

Anzaldua identifies as a part of an emerging new mestiza consciousness and community, which strives to move beyond simple dualistic thinking and endeavors to “act and not react” This important contradiction lies at the heart of Anzaldua’s analysis. “From this racial, ideological, cultural, and biological cross-pollicization, an ‘alien’ consciousness is presently in the making — a new mestiza consciousness, una conciencia de mujer. It is a consciousness of the Borderlands.” (Anzaldua, 1987, 420). Anzaldua’s proposition of the new consciousness mediates social relations, revolutionary social change, and its wider relevance to feminist theory through discussions of the Borderlands and its implications for ‘identity.’

The effect of this is to talk about how it's a cruel cycle of everlasting violence, where neither side ultimately wins anything from it.

The rapist is always the bad guy, right? Initially when analyzing this poem, reading through the several lines describing Lockwood’s assaulter and ex-boyfriend it was my assumption that it was directed towards him. After over a decade of allowing everything to fester the author was ready to get everything out and let the pieces fall where they may. However, under further scrutiny I realized that Lockwood was not villainizing her ex-boyfriend in these depictions but humanizing him. In these passages she describes his job, his hobbies, and his relationship with herself and her family. She portrays her assaulter as flawed but mundane- anybody could have committed the crime he did. In fact, while Lockwood’s story is specific to her own experiences it is one that rings true with many rape survivors. Close to 50% of all rapes taken place in the

The border between the United States of America and Mexico always had been always a theme for a lot of discussions. And, in the book “Sunshine/Noir II” Juanita Lopez and Michael Cheno described, through texts, their point of view about the topic. Both authors represent that the control of the border has become way more restrict and militarized. In that sense, Michael Wickert presents his idea in a poem form, text named “The border Is a Fight”, that describes the dramas of a Mexican family that has to cross the border every day in a hope to get a better future. Whereas, Juanita Lopez demonstrates it through an essay that uses personal narratives of the author’s relatives to illustrate her point of view. Therefore, the both authors exploit their point of views using different text forms, and figurative images, like metaphors and personification, for delivering their ideas in the way they do.

In the first two stanza you would think that the narrator is mocking the event; but as the poem finishes you learn the narrator’s true feelings. In the third

Initially, the sight of Spanish within a work that is primarily English is unexpected, forcing readers to take a moment to fully comprehend the text. Anzaldua’s use of Spanish utilizes this quality, but it also demonstrates her flexibility in language and the way that both Spanish and English play important roles in how she identifies herself. Both languages are a part of Anzaldua, and applying them acknowledges her refusal to conform into one simple stereotype or idea.