The Spanish Chicano Culture

Kandiyoti, Dalia. 2004. “Host and Guest in the ‘Latino Contact Zone’: Narrating Solidarity and Hospitality in Mother Tongue.” Comparative American Studies 2, no. 4: 421–46.

In this Chapter I feel that Anzaldua is trying to get the reader to understand the differences and atruggles amongst cultures. The clash of cultures results in mental and emotional confusion. Living inbetween more than one culture, you often get opposing messages from these cultures. Sometimes when living within the Chicana culture common white beleifs conflict with the beleifs of the Mexican culture. They both hold beleifs of the indifinous peopel and their culture. It creates a problem that the dominant cultures views and beleifs are defiant to the others. This is very wrong because it creats the problem of one being superior to the other. This especially relates to the Mexican culture and white culture. This creates the assimilation problem when one culture is not accepted or considered below another.

Up to “half a year passed…” (Rodriguez, 287) until his teachers “…began to connect [his] behaviour with the difficult progress of [his] older sister and brother were making” (287). Note the fact that the teacher’s realization was because of his siblings and not because of his solitude, silent attitude. The message, as Anzaldua perfectly evokes in his short story, is that it’s our very “tongue [which] diminishes our sense of self” (298). A similar image Anzaldua depicts in ‘How to Tame a Wild Tongue’ – coincidently at the rather beginning of the text just like Rodriguez – is when the Anglo teacher said “If you want to be American, speak ‘American’. If you don’t like it, go back to Mexico where you belong” (295). On this occasion, Anzaldua’s mother also tells him off as she was “…mortified that [her son] spoke English like a Mexican” (295). Here, the pressure derives from the mom and the teacher, making Anzaldua feel out of place. He believes that “wild tongues can’t be tamed, they can only be cut” (295) emphasizing that one’s identity must be forgotten if he/she wants to learn another language (English), ultimately gaining a new identity. Another example of lack of identity recognition is when Kingston, in ‘Tongue Tied’, specifies that only the Chinese girls were left out when the class went to the auditorium. Kingston “…knew the silence had to do with being a Chinese girl” (284), hence, her self-esteem diminishes, she feels excluded from the class;

Throughout this essay, Anzaldua hold a prideful yet informative tone. When she tells her stories from her childhood, the tone changes to disbelief as she remembers all hardships she had to go through. Anzaldua gives another example of when her teachers mispronounced her name and as she tried to correct them they told her “If she wants

Anzaldua begins the essay with a metaphor, in which she is at a checkup at the dentist. Her mouth is being stuffed with cotton wads, which in reality is society preventing her from expressing herself, through speaking her native language, Spanish. The wads violate Anzaldua’s first amendment, be more explicit with the wads, what does it symbolize and how if specifically affect the amendment ?? if you want lol which is closely related to the experiences my parents faced, when they had recently migrated from Mexico. To name a few of the disadvantages they had were: both denied the opportunity to join a legal workforce, ability to rent apartment in certain areas,

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.

In Gloria Anzaldúa article “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” she shows us how different worlds so close can be so different. Anzaldúa shows that people have restricted freedom in society by the social norms set in them. Anzaldúa pressed her awareness and distraught on how people treat her depending on the type of language she uses. She also explains some of her emotions towards the way people are like with speaking and listening to accents. The article is how Anzaldúa explains how culture and accent shapes a person’s identity by being controlled and oppressed to fit into the social norms, which is how she creates cracks using language and code switching.

“I'm not Mexican. I am not American. I am not American in USA and Mexican in Mexico. I am Chicano everywhere. I do not have to assimilate anything. I have my own history”, stated the writer and novelist Carlos Fuentes. The Chicano subculture is the mixture of the Mexican and the American cultures. This subculture has its own history and unique characterizations that make it stand out. According to the Merriam Webster dictonary the word subculture is defined as “a group that has beliefs and behaviors that are different from the main groups within a culture or society”. The Chicano subculture has a history, language, leaders, art, literature, and even their music, and it’s the perfect example for this definition of the word subculture.

The cultural practices that Chicanos/Chicanas partake in such as being pachucos and pachucas, being actively involved in feminism, creating music and using stereotypes in film reflect their struggle to attain freedom and empowerment against Anglo society and within themselves. The various elements that make up Chicano culture have helped them resist Anglo culture and develop subcultures within the Chicano community. In addition, it has also allowed them to free themselves from the idea of becoming just like standard the American that they are expected to be.

As a result, Anzaldua illustrates her hardship to the attention of an English speaker as an audience. Throughout the reading, she consistently switches from English to Spanish in many paragraphs forcing a non-Spanish speaker, such as myself, to look up translations an order to make sense of the story. An example of this would be when her mother expresses her disappointment saying, “I want you to speak English. PA hallar buen trabajo hablas ingles con un accent” (206). By forcing this task on the audience, this allows a sense of empathy and understanding of author’s struggles of what she had to go through growing up. She had spoken English but is still sadly looked upon from her mother due to having Spanish “accent”, that with this accent putting her through school is pointless.

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

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.

Gloria Anzaldua, the author of “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” expresses a very strong tie that she has to her native language. Anzaldua grew up in the United States, but spoke mostly Spanish. She did not speak the normal form of Spanish though; she spoke Chicano Spanish, a language very close to her heart. The text focuses on the idea of her losing her home accent, or tongue, to conform to the environment she is growing up in. From a very young age, Anzaldua knows that she is not treated the same as everyone else is treated. She knows that she is second to others, and her language is far from second to others as well. Anzaldua stays true to her language by identifying herself with her language and keeping

Tan clearly mentions in her story that she had to speak two different languages to her Asian mom who had her own made up English. Tan relates to both her Asian descent and American belongings by using her mom’s made up English to speak with her mom, and uses the proper English to give lectures and speak to most Americans. On the same grounds, Anzaldua learned through her life experiences to frequently use multiple types of English, and many other Dialects of proper Spanish and Mexican Spanish. She uses each language to communicate, connect and affiliate to specific people according to their background. This proves that the assumption that language defines culture and identity fails. What happens to the people who speak many languages, do they not get the benefit and pride of belonging to a certain community? Rather the contrary, they belong to multiple communities and they choose which group they want to communicate with and with which language. People have the ability to switch from a language to another to be part of a group and this supports the idea that identity defines and shapes language, and not the opposite.

In our society today, culture is not what it used to be hundreds of years ago. There is no more “pure” culture. Our culture today is enriched with many different traditions and customs that are being shared and adopted. Due to emigration and immigration, a variety of diverse customs, beliefs, and knowledge moved with every exiting and entering human being. Thus, changing and shaping the culture of many. Throughout the world, the beliefs and religious views of culture are dissimilar around the world. By taking the time to read, listen and learn about certain people’s culture, there will be knowledge and understanding that will be gained.