Summary Of How To Tame A Wild Tongue

Anzaldua’s How to “Tame a Wild tongue” goes to great lengths to discuss her opinions on language, and how her communication with people from various linguistic backgrounds required her to change gears in a way. To “switch codes.” Each of us as we participate in different environments with diverse expectations and duties switch various codes of our own. In my life I most often switch between a normal code, a snarky code, and a business code.

Gloria Anzaldua, author of the article " How to tame a Wild Tongue", expresses very strong views on how she feels her native Chicano Spanish language needs to be preserved in order to maintain cultural unity when used as a private form of communication. Her statement, " for a people who cannot identify with either standard (formal, Castilian) Spanish, nor standard English, what recourse is left to them but to create their own language?" suggests that despite the societal pressures of needing to learn more formal and ‘properly' accepted English and Spanish, the very nature of the Chicano language is a unique creation of acceptance, through language within the Mexican culture. She is opposed to assimilation on

When I was brought into the world, I was not aware of the hand that I was dealt with. I was completely oblivious to human constructs that inevitably left our world divided. I did not know about race, religion, sexuality or gender roles. If it had not been for the media, I would not have tried to put so much emphasis on the label that was given to me, Latina. When reading Issa Rae’s essay “The Struggle”, I felt a sense of comfort knowing that someone else had gone through similar experiences.

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 the boiling pot of America most people have been asked “what are you?” when referring to one’s race or nationality. In the short story “Borders” by Thomas King he explores one of the many difficulties of living in a world that was stripped from his race. In a country that is as diverse as North America, culture and self-identity are hard to maintain. King’s short story “Borders” deals with a conflict that I have come to know well of. The mother in “Borders” is just in preserving her race and the background of her people. The mother manages to maintain her identity that many people lose from environmental pressure.

Racial Formation in the United States by Michael Omi and Howard Winant made me readjust my understanding of race by definition and consider it as a new phenomenon. Through, Omi and Winant fulfilled their purpose of providing an account of how concepts of race are created and transformed, how they become the focus of political conflict, and how they shape and permeate both identities and institutions. I always considered race to be physical characteristic by the complexion of ones’ skin tone and the physical attributes, such as bone structure, hair texture, and facial form. I knew race to be a segregating factor, however I never considered the meaning of race as concept or signification of identity that refers to different types of human bodies, to the perceived corporal and phenotypic makers of difference and the meanings and social practices that are ascribed to these differences, in which in turn create the oppressing dominations of racialization, racial profiling, and racism. (p.111). Again connecting themes from the previous readings, my westernized influences are in a direct correlation to how to the idea of how I see race and the template it has set for the rather automatic patterns of inequalities, marginalization, and difference. I never realized how ubiquitous and evolving race is within the United States.

In “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” by Gloria Anzaldua, she speaks from personal experiences she grows up with while living as a Chicana in the United States. Throughout her life she was subjected to being oppressed because of her native language. From a very young age she felt as if she was not allowed to express and acknowledge herself while speaking Spanish. Anzaldua believes that “If you want to really hurt me, talk bad about my language. Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity – I am my language”. What I get from this quote is if a person is really looking forward to tearing me down, speak poorly of my roots or culture since that is a part of my identity. Since both are all I know, it would be extremely offensive. In “How to

Throughout history, there has been immense cases of bias and prejudice. This resulted in anything from segregation to mass genocide. In both, Okita's Response to Executive Order 9066, and Cisneros's Mericans, these prejudice fears are addressed. Americans who were not white or Anglo-Saxon were all classified as un-American. In both Okita's poem and Cisneros's story, it's shown that American identity did not depend on one's individuality but on one's majority. No matter one's race or heritage, they should only be judged upon the content of their character and not upon their skin tone.

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.

     Through our readings of the Mexicans in the U.S. and the African-American experience modules, we begin to understand the formation of identity through the hardships minorities faced from discrimination. In this paper, I am going to compare and contrast the ideas of identity shown through the readings. These two modules exemplify the theme of identity. We see how Blacks and Latinos tried to find their identity both personally and as a culture through the forced lifestyles they had to live.

The beginning of this area in Gloria Anzaldúa’s composition is about the Coatlicue State. She depicts Coatlicue as the Aztec goddess of life and death. Coatlicue conflicts with herself in having the ability to take away life and give it. Anzaldúa reprocesses the goddess’s picture to regard her personal identity battle: being a woman who is also Latina. Her conflict makes me contemplate my inner struggle amongst myself. My entire life I was raised in an upper-class community with no true insight of how lower classes lived. I became a little more aware of how lower classes lived in high school but it was not until I went to college that I was able to experience being part of their class. It is funny how I was raised one way my whole life but as I began to experience a different manner of living, it was weird to go back to the habits I grew up with even though I know them more than my new ones. Like Anzaldúa, I feel odd sometimes when I go back to the city I grew up in. I know that my comparison is different, but Anzaldúa’s words about duality make me think of the oddness I experience when I am in my hometown with my birth class.

Mexican-Americans are an essential part of the United States’ diverse mix of cultures. Although a prominent part of American culture, they are often repressed into stereotypes in literature. More often than not characteristics delegated to Mexican-Americans have negative connotations: poor, violent, alien, etc. This stems from years of tension between Mexico and America, whose relationship seems to be a never-ending cycle of highs and lows. Cultural critics recognize these problems and work towards equality within both literary and real culture.

In “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, the main point that Gloria is trying to say to her audience in her article , her language is her identity , but she is persecuted for speaking her language which called Chicano by both whites and Hispanics. Also, she talked about important social problems such as sexism, reprimand, and identity construction.

According to Stephanie Anderson (2016), our second learning objective in this class is, “Students will be able to identify the dynamics of ethnic, cultural, gender/sexual, age-based, class, regional, national, transnational, and global identities and the similarities, differences, linkages, and interactions between them”. In reading, analyzing, and performing stories like Julio’s, we come to understand the obstacles other people have to overcome. More specifically, the race and ethnicity of another creates tensions between other cultures. The interaction the different nations, cultures, races, etc., have with one another have an unequal power dynamic which results in poor treatment. As we learn the important differences in places such as privilege, we can better understand our

Sebastian's parents are immigrants from costa rica. Although he experienced culture clash from his own family members. Among his family, he felt like a rose in a bouquet of daisies, which was common for him. He was use to it. He had yet to learn of the hate and ignorance of the outside world. One of the most shocking and recent clash has occurred at a mall last month. Sebastian and his father were checking out their item until a caucasian female cashier started a conversation about his father’s jobs .