Homegirls analysis
Paul Swartout
11/3/14
Paper 4 Analysis of “Homegirls”
Language can be the source of comedy or the source of fear. Language can also help us determine the geological location of a person. Also to go along with this a person’s identity can be seen through language. This concept of identity seen through language, is what we saw in the book Homegirls by Norma Mendoza-Denton. Through this book she was able to show us the linguistic ethnography of the Sor Juana High School Latina girls in a neighborhood in Northern California. Many of the girls she documents in the book are part of the gangs Norte or Sur. Sor Juana High School is located in Santa Clara California and has a Hispanic population of 403,000 which is 24% of the population in the county. With the Homegirls book Mendoza-Denton shows us concepts of the Latina girl’s language and how it shapes them to the views of the outside audience. For this analysis I am going to focus on the hemispheric localism and Muy Macha, because these concepts shows how language can be expressed through body language or oral language.
In the Homegirls book we see the concept of hemispheric localism. This is the language differences from their citizenship, race, or even the kids who spoke English as a second language. In the book this definition is given by Mendoza-Denton as “the projection of neighborhood-base, spatialized discourses of “turf” with debates over race, immigration, modernity and globalization.” (Mendoza-Denton 2008:4 104) Some examples of this are there language use, performative speech act, where they were from, economic position, and neighborhood residence. All these examples are what set each gang apart in the Homegirls book. They are what give us the ability to see and determine which girls were part of the Norte and which ones were in the Sur.
The Sur gang was comprised of Latinos or latinas who had just come to the area from Mexico or Latin America so they were speaking for the most part only Spanish with
11/3/14
Paper 4 Analysis of “Homegirls”
Language can be the source of comedy or the source of fear. Language can also help us determine the geological location of a person. Also to go along with this a person’s identity can be seen through language. This concept of identity seen through language, is what we saw in the book Homegirls by Norma Mendoza-Denton. Through this book she was able to show us the linguistic ethnography of the Sor Juana High School Latina girls in a neighborhood in Northern California. Many of the girls she documents in the book are part of the gangs Norte or Sur. Sor Juana High School is located in Santa Clara California and has a Hispanic population of 403,000 which is 24% of the population in the county. With the Homegirls book Mendoza-Denton shows us concepts of the Latina girl’s language and how it shapes them to the views of the outside audience. For this analysis I am going to focus on the hemispheric localism and Muy Macha, because these concepts shows how language can be expressed through body language or oral language.
In the Homegirls book we see the concept of hemispheric localism. This is the language differences from their citizenship, race, or even the kids who spoke English as a second language. In the book this definition is given by Mendoza-Denton as “the projection of neighborhood-base, spatialized discourses of “turf” with debates over race, immigration, modernity and globalization.” (Mendoza-Denton 2008:4 104) Some examples of this are there language use, performative speech act, where they were from, economic position, and neighborhood residence. All these examples are what set each gang apart in the Homegirls book. They are what give us the ability to see and determine which girls were part of the Norte and which ones were in the Sur.
The Sur gang was comprised of Latinos or latinas who had just come to the area from Mexico or Latin America so they were speaking for the most part only Spanish with