Throughout the world societies are colliding and causing extreme prejudice against minorities. In today’s society we continue to fear the unknown, even if the unknown is a person. Julia Alvarez’s “I, Too, Sing America” emphasizes the persecution people face in a new country and how assimilation…
In Julia Alvarez’s speech “Entre Lucas y Juan Mejia”, She start explaining the challenges we faced as an immigrant. She said, “As an immigrant, you leave behind an old world and enter into a new world in which the old ways no longer apply” (1). In my opinion as an immigrant I can related to this quote, because when I came to United States I felt that I entered in a completely new world. In which I had to start a new life with a different language and culture. Also, Julia Álvarez mentioned the challenges she had as a female writer in another country that has a different language.…
Being born in the United States and keeping a strong bond with my parent’s homeland, Mexico, has made me realize that I agree with many theory’s that Gloria Anzaldúa, author of, Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza, has defended in her book. Anzaldúa seems to believe that no one should ever be allowed to quiet someone of their native language, the way that some Americans prohibit Mexicans to speak Spanish. In addition to that, Anzaldúa also takes up time writing about her theory of Mexican women. Anzaldúa believes that Mexican men make themselves superior to women and she seems to blame the Mexican women for allowing men to take the role of being dominant over the Mexican women. Lastly, Anzaldúa goes on writing about how she believes that the lives of Mexicans and Americans would be less confrontational if only they were willing to make borders into crossroads in which they all had a part of each other’s culture. All in all, Anzaldúa makes statements in her book about some of the many theories I agree with, which Anzaldúa presents in her book are theories about, language, culture, and borders.…
This essay can relate best with reader from a Hispanic background, being that they come from a different country and they are not fluent English speakers. They can also relate to Cisneros’s family experiences. In contrast, Tan’s audience is Asian-Americans, because they can identify to the type of speech or fragmented or “broken language” like Tan mentions in “Mother Tongue.” The simplification of certain concepts that Tan practices in her writing allows her writing to be grasped by a wide range of readers. However, both pieces of writing deal with two female writers that are writing to immigrants from whom English is a second…
Every day, Americans of all races encounter the problem of walking into a store and hearing people of other ethnicities speaking other languages. It is frustrating to have to interrelate with other individuals and not be able to connect fully with them because of a linguistic barrier. In the articles, The F Word by Dumas, Mother Tongue by Tan and Aria by Rodriguez, the difficulties of being an immigrant are stated. Many immigrants have problems adapting to a new society and sometimes society does not understand. Every day, they endure many problems such as not being understood, having to learn a new language, and discrimination.…
When analyzing Gloria Anzaldua’s writing “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” it is important to look at her background. She comes from a very diverse background; her parents were immigrants, she was born in south Texas, and she identifies herself as a Chicana feminist. The different discourse communities seen through her writing is the struggle she has between the different languages she has to adapt to around different people in her life. Writing from the borderlands between American, Mexican, Spanish, Indian, Chicano, and Mestiza culture, Anzaldua creates a representation of the wide range of forces within herself and the culture from which comes.…
1. Her essay, "How to Tame a Wild Tongue" focuses on the idea of losing an accent or native language to conform to the current environment. Anzaldua grew up in the United States but spoke mostly Spanish. The problem is that the language she spoke was Chicano Spanish, not true Spanish. She was living in an English speaking environment she wasn't living in a Spanish speaking country, but was speaking a form of Spanish. She describes the difficulty of hard the delicate ever changing language of Chicano Spanish.…
The articles “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” by Gloria Anzaldua and “Saying Nothing” by Catherine Ramirez center on language and the important role language play in the lives of Mexican-Americans living in the United States. As a Chicano it gives me tremendous pride when I hear the language I grew up speaking, I can only describe it as a mixture of Caló and Spanglish. My earliest memories where of my older brother and cousin saying things like “orale ese! que rollo ay te watcho!” So you can imagine my delight when I hear someone yell in a Sydney nightclub “Ese mi Norez que rollo my brotha?”…
American values are frequently forced upon students or workers. There are few times, where people look down on people who do not accept the American Way of Life. In “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” Anzaldúa wrote, “So if you really want to hurt me, talk badly about my language. Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity – I am my language” (Anzaldúa 445). Linguistic identity can be difficult for a bilingual person, being somewhere in-between two different culture is confusing and sometimes uncomfortable. A person can’t simply identify with one or the other because each culture has impacted an individual’s life. Being a bilingual also creates boundaries and limitations because the feeling of being disconnected from the language and culture a person is…
"Identity is the essential core of who we are as individuals, the conscious experience of the self inside" - Kaufman (Anzuldύa 62). Coming to America and speaking more than one language, I often face similar situations as Gloria Anzaldύa and Amy Tan. Going to high school where personal image is a big part of a student 's life is very nerve racking. American Values are often forced upon students and a certain way of life is expected of them. Many times, in America, people look down on people who do not accept the American Way of Life. The struggle of "fitting in" and accepting the cultural background is a major point in both essays, _Mother Tongue_ by Amy Tan and _How to Tame a Wild Tongue_ by Gloria Anzaldύa, which the authors argue similarly about. Both essays can be related to my life as I experience them in my life at home and at school.…
When reading this passage, it is evident that Anzaldua feels strongly about her Hispanic background and doesn’t concur with the ideology of the university and their attempts to rid students of their accents. I also construe, through reading the passage, that even though many natives don’t approve of her Chicano way of speaking, she is pleased with her heritage and culture and doesn’t concern herself with others opinions.…
During the course of American history, immigrants have come in from all around the world. In “Mother Tongue”, Amy Tan describes her mother’s experience as well as her own experiences with the English language. Amy Tan tries to give a more positive view of people who immigrate to this country and shine a light on those who try to take advantage of these immigrants. In her essay she appeals to pathos, applies subjective diction, and uses several anecdotes in order to clearly tell the experiences she and her mother have and to give us a better understanding of people who do not speak English well like her mother.…
Gloria Anzaldua in How to Tame a Wild Tongue and Amy Tan in Mother Tongue both share a similar message in their essays, they argue that every single culture faces different language obstacles when learning the english language. Both struggle to develop the correct form of english, the one considered acceptable by society. Both Tan and Anzaldua teach us about their ethnic backgrounds, in an effort to better help us learn of their struggles. Amy Tan, is of asian descent, and tells us how growing up with a mother who spoke “broken english” influenced the person she became and how she approached the world. Gloria Anzaldua, considered herself a Mexican American but mainly Chicana, and she tells us of her struggle to accept her roots and to find a place where she belonged. Ultimately, this also influenced who Anzaldua came to be. The…
In this essay Barrientos argues that the language she speaks defines her identity and who she is as a person. As Barrientos was growing up, she realized being Latin-American was not what she wanted to be, she decided to didn’t want to speak Spanish, as Barrientos says, “To me, speaking Spanish translated into being poor.” She also said “It meant waiting tables and cleaning hotel rooms. It meant being poor.” She thought if she stayed away from Spanish stereotypes they would…
One thing that I kept noticing as I read Leave Your Name at the Border was that speaking Spanish was almost looked down upon and that people were not only embarrassed by their name, but also by the fact that they knew how to speak Spanish. Manuel Munoz says, “English was for public display. Spanish was for privacy and privacy quickly turned into shame.” This quote really got me. I find it odd that they appear to be so ashamed of their heritage, that they would try covering it up by using the English equivalent of their name instead of sticking with their birth name. I could be reading it wrong and the meaning of the word “shame” here could refer to something else instead, but from what I get out of this story is that they are ashamed of their own language. He does say “It was simultaneously the language of the white population and the path toward the richer, expansive identify of “American.” Talking about English as a language. I could see how they would want to be recognized as “American” because they think that English could get them a better paying job, or just better opportunities, but at what cost are they willing to get it at? Another quote that kind of struck me as I was reading was, “Spanish was and still is viewed with suspicion: Always the language of the vilified illegal immigrant, it segregated schoolchildren into English-only and bilingual programs; it defined you, above all else, as part of a lower class.” I find it sad that in our society today things like this happen, that we still judge people by the color of the skin or the language that they talk, or even by the name that they have. This ties back into Amy Tans’ story too. How certain people are denied certain rights because they language isn’t up to our standards. We should recognize that people have gone through the trouble…