Rodriguez, a bilingual author, had a case more extreme than mine, as he learned English as his second language. My Caucasian father could not speak Lao, which caused the need for my proficiency in English pronunciation and vocabulary. Rodriguez’s family spoke only Spanish. Originally, the introduction of English (most likely Spanglish) granted him elements of fun while he learned English. His essay takes a more melancholy tone when he is suddenly forced to speak solely English.…
Se Habla Espanol by Tanya Barrientos was about a Latina girl who struggled with her identity. She was born in Guatemala but has lived in America since she was three years old. In the beginning she was somewhat embarrassed by her Hispanic heritage. Tanya felt inferior to the white people because of how she looked and because of her last name. The tone of the essay was a serious and desperate cry for help. It seemed she was speaking to anyone who could listen and relate to her. Tanya wrote from her point of view and how she felt like a “gringa” trapped in a Latina girl’s body.…
Before Anzaldua can give her solutions to the problems borderland people face, she must clearly demonstrate these people’s frustrations. Anzaldua grabs the attention of her Mexican-American readers through their natural ability to relate to her argument, while she catches readers of different ethnicities by switching back and forth between Spanish and English, creating the same type of frustration that borderland natives experience daily. In the last paragraph of Chapter Four, “Movimientos de rebelidad y las culturas que traicionan” Anzaldua depicts how "colored women" through the years have been treated unfairly by their own people as well as foreigners. At the end of the paragraph she switches to Spanish to say, “Aqua en la soledad prospera su rebeldia. En la soledad Ella prospera” (45). (Translation: “Here in the loneness, she thrives in her rebelliousness. In the loneness, she thrives”). I have a small Spanish-language background, but in my experience reading Borderlands/ La Frontera, it was frustrating to need to refer to a Spanish-English dictionary. Yet through my frustration I was able to finally identify with the barriers that borderland people face. Through creating a language barrier in her writing, Anzaldua ultimately places…
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…
This seminar was about the Rehabilitating the "Wild Tongue" Philosophy at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. The speaker, Francisco Guajardo, divided his presentation into four major parts. Francisco starts off by giving a background information of his life. In the first few minutes of the presentation, I learned Francisco belonged to an immigrant family. His family migrated to the United States, in search for a better life. Francisco grew up in the city of Elsa, Texas beside his two brothers. Francisco first language was Spanish, but he later was introduced to the English language. While Francisco attended his first year of elementary school, his classroom became a test trial for bilingual instruction. Francisco states that rushing a Spanish speaking child into an English classroom will affect their language development.…
In the book, El Otro Lado by Julia Alvarez, describes the author’s experience of leaving the dominican republic and moving to the united states. This is more than just her moving though, it’s about her transition through things like her culture, her behavior, her personality and her childhood into a world of emotions filled with insecurity, love, hurt. Alvarez’s use of Spanish that is mixed into the English she writes her poems also describe stories of her life along with the struggle of emigrating to a new country and what it’s like living in a country that isn’t 1st world or most advanced, revealing feelings from situations that most immigrants face coming to the United States. Alvarez also reveals her own personal…
The Author, Julie Alvarez, also the main Character in the story, is trying to explain how hard and difficult it is to learn and adjust to a new language which is English. For example my, when he was a citizen from t Mexico, he tried to learn Americas Culture but in order for him to do that he had to work twice as hard to pass a citizens test and even more as a new comer in the United States. Which meant a lot of sacrifices. As a father he became a great person now today and showed his willingness for his new country just like how Julie wants to show what she went through as a person learning a new culture.…
When seeing the title, the reader thinks the article will be about her race, but instead Matthew focuses on other things making it seem like a biography. This aspect of his writing is really rather…
The first stuggle that latinos have to overcome when they come here is the language barrier. Something that mamacita in "No speak english" does not understand. Mamacita is a women who doesn't want to change her lifestyle to the american way. She only knows a few words and like many latinos no speak english is the main thing she says. Esperanza believes that "she doesn't comes out because she is afraid to speak english". Many latino immigrants go through the same thing. If it's not…
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…
An anonymous author wrote “Our culture, our traditions, our language are the foundations upon which we build our identity.” This brings out what Tanya Maria Barrientos argues throughout her essay, “Se Habla Español.” She struggled to identify herself as Latino and embracing her Spanish heritage. So at a young age, she decided to step away from America’s stereotypical view of Latin’s and embrace what she thought was the correct way to live. One main thing she didn’t want was to be able to speak Spanish, because she thought people would automatically judge her. Like Barrientos, I how was raised had a lot to do with my identity and how I perceived myself and the world.…
her own person, and increasingly a part of the society in which she is an…
‘It’s Hard Enough Being Me’ by Raya is a short story about her own experience. It seems to be the cultural awakening of a female college student that occurs when she goes off to college in New York. Coming from the Mexican American family, Raya did not think much about where she comes from and who she is until college. Raya says, “In El Sereno, I felt like I was part of the majority, whereas at the College I am a minority” (119). Now that she is in a new environment, she feels detached from the society. Moreover, Raya’s mom did not want to teach her Spanish because she des not want her daughter be called “spic” or “wetback” (119). Raya had the advantage of being Mexican and Puerto Rican, but never had the chance to develop her main language when she was a little girl because it would be used against her. In this essay, the author uses the emotional appeal to show that how she is treated by Mexicans when she can’t speak perfect Spanish as well as how she is treated by Americans while attempting to speak the language. “Soy yo and no one else. Punto.”(120), this last sentence in her article uses two competing languages and it…
Also, she tells us about her bad experience as a child, she attended a lot of funerals. When she was young, she saw the death around her in every place. For an example, in her article “we are ugly, but we are here,” she says, “when I was eight, my uncle’s brother-in-law went on a long journey to cut cane in the Dominican Republic. He came back deathly, I'll.” Also, the women in her society do no have any rights, but they still have a hope in tomorrow. They believed that “if a life is lost, then another one springs up replanted somewhere…
ichard Rodriguez, in his essay "Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood," wants reader to understand that bilingual education is not needed due to the fact that one can still keep their cultural identity. As he also brings about the point that intimacy is not about language you speak, but much rather about the people you are surrounded by. He points out the obstacles he faced as growing up a Hispanic American growing up in an American society. Many of those struggles he faced were in his early childhood as he battled to understand and learn english. As Rodriguez struggled to grasp the english language, he also found that he was losing the comfort he found in Spanish.…