Summary Of How To Tame A Wild Tongue

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

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.

Cristina Henriquez’, The Book of Unknown Americans, folows the story of a family of immigants adjusting to their new life in the United States of America. The Rivera family finds themselves living within a comunity of other immigrants from all over South America also hoping to find a better life in a new country. This book explores the hardships and injustices each character faces while in their home country as well as withina foreign one, the United States. Themes of community, identity, globalization, and migration are prevalent throughout the book, but one that stood out most was belonging. In each chacters viewpoint, Henriquez explores their feelings of the yearning they have to belong in a community so different than the one that they are used to.

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

In her passage, Anzaldua claims that language is an identity. She stresses the importance of how people who speak Chicano Spanish are viewed as inferior due to it not being a real language. Anzaldua reveals that “repeated attacks on [their] native tongue diminish[es] [their] sense of self” (532). Being criticized by the language one speaks causes a low self-esteem and a misconstruction of identity. It can lead a person to stop or hide the usage of their language thus suppressing one’s self. She highlights the discrimination of Chicanos, so people are aware of it therefore encouraging tolerance and social justice. Anzaldua argues that “until [she is] free to write bilingually and to switch codes without having to always translate. . .[her] tongue will be illegitimate” (533). This shows how truly she

The main idea of Gloria Anzaldua in How to tame a wild Tongue is that she came from a different country and it is hard for her to cope up with academic way of talking and the talking style of her own cultures. It is as in her cultures, they speak Standard English, working class and slang English, standard Spanish, standard Mexican Spanish, north Mexican Spanish dialect, Chicano Spanish, such as ( Texas new Mexico, Arizona and California), tex-Mex and Pachuca (called calb) ..

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.

Through out history society has created many stereotypes and assumptions based on race and nationality to confine us into categories. The reality is not every individual fits a specific category because we are unique even within the same ethnicity group. In “On Being Told I Don’t Speak Like a Black Person” Allison Joseph illustrates some speech stereotypes that come hand in hand with her racial background and how even people from the same racial background and house hold don’t all sound a like. The author portrays that race and linguistic has a huge impact on our daily life and how society sees her different to others. Also, her own identity is being put in to question base on a linguistic stereotype. Furthermore, base on ones racial orientation society already have a certain expectation of what they assume the person is capable of and an expectation of how one acts like. When we put stereotypes on individuals we discrediting the individuals identity, we are making those people part of a group base on a assumption and stereotypes can not be used to describe a who group because not everyone fits into a certain category.

Gloria Anzaldúa does a remarkable job guiding her readers to acknowledge the reality of the colonized and her assuredness to that reality in the poem, To live in the Borderlands means you. In this analysis, I will provide clear evidence that the author is actively engaging her readers to experience the otherness of the colonized. I will do this by pinpointing the use of the Spanish language embedded within the lines of each stanza, the display of double consciousness with subtle uses of imagery, and the overall sense of empowerment. As an English speaker, I notice Anzaldúa strategically using several lines of the Spanish language that forces me and her readers not privy to the language to cross reference between the English and Spanish dictionary. Doing this automatically puts in perspective the difficulties that the multiracial humans face as they are marginalized in a colonized society. I believe she is using Spanish phrases and words to demonstrate oppression and suppression as a means of expressing a clash between race and culture. I will also be showing the double consciousness that the other develops by not being welcomed amongst the colonized and colonizer. To live in the Borderlands creates a double consciousness. This is the existences between a person between multiple cultures that generates an unhomeliness effect Anzaldúa creates from that imagery that the other has no place in society as they are cast out from one side who denies them and the colonizers who

When one visualizes Latino culture, the prevalent images are often bright colors, dancing, and celebrations. This imagery paints a false portrait of the life of many Latino’s, especially those that are forced to leave their home countries. Latinos often face intense poverty and oppression, whether in a Latin country, or a foreign country, such is true in Pam Ryan’s novel Esperanza Rising. Ryan chronicles the issues that many Latino immigrants face. The first is the pressure from the home country. Many of the countries face turmoil, and many are forced to leave their homes and culture. Once in a foreign place, people often struggle with standing by their own culture or assimilating to the new culture. Latino authors frequently use young adult literature as a platform to discuss the issues they face, as young adults are coming of age they struggle with their identities, personifying the struggle of old culture against the new culture.

Anzaldua goes into depth about the different languages she speaks in the chapter, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue.” She translates some of the Spanish words and phrases into English such as ruca to girl or women and periquiar to talk (Anzaldua 474). Other phrases she doesn’t translate to English. A phrase she does not translate is where she converses with her mother about wanting Anzaldua to speak in English. Part of the text was in English and then it converts to Spanish (471). She switches between the languages throughout the essay because it demonstrates how the languages are a part of her identity. Anzaldua gives meanings, many metaphoric, for “tongue” and “wild tongue” because it illustrates what she is trying to say about herself and society

Growing up, Gloria Anzaldua was encircled by lots of sayings that only women had to follow concerning how you ought to act and such. She identifies herself as a Chicano. Chicano is an assortment of nearly everything, from the “standard Spanish to Southern Texas Spanish.” All with diverse customs of speaking, many people believed that Chicano’s cannot voice Spanish suitably. They feel uncomfortable when talking to other Hispanics. Identity, in relative to language, is together. She talks about the finest technique to demoralize a Chicano is to talk critically of her language, which in turn would bring harm to her identity. She is zealous about her identity and language, and It is quite clear when she begins to speak about her experience in trying

In the book called How to tame a wild tongue” written by Gloria Anzaldua. She talks about using many different voices not just one but many. For instance, her poets voice, woman’s voice, Indian voice, and etc. The reader can see that in each section she discusses each one of her voices. She had struggled with identity which could be because of her childhood. Each oe of her voices are a layer that covers her true self. This due because of the cultures and barriers she has had to go through.

The "American Dream" was defined by James Adams, in 1931, he stated, " 'life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement' regardless of social class or circumstances of birth." In the thirties, the "American Dream" is depicted in the perspective of a prosperous, white male; however, in an immigrant view today, the so-called "American Dream" is completely different. FreeQuency's "Lessons on Being an African Immigrant, " and Gloria Anzaldua's "How to Tame a wild tongue," share the focus on maintaining native culture to stop the censorship that the "American Dream" applies to immigrants through their lyrical and aggressive writing.