Being the “other” in a dominant discourse society The question that stems out of Anzaldua is can you be the dominant discourse and then have another group of people come in and put you into the role of the “other”. Both Pratt and Anzaldua distinctively show the dominant discourse and the “other” in their essays. Anzaldua shows that she and the Chicanos are considered as the “other” but the problem is that they were there first and were treated like they were not important. Pratt spoke of the Incas and Spaniards. The Spaniards thought that they were the dominant discourse and they treated the Incas as if they didn’t matter. Anzaldua started her essay by saying “We’re going to have to control your tongue, “the dentist says, pulling out all the metal from my mouth. After reading that I realized that the dentist is the dominant discourse and he is …show more content…
trying to take out the accents that the Chicanos have.
“Pulling out all the metal from my mouth is like taking way the accent in the Chicanos speech. She went on to say that “my mouth is a motherlode” which means that she sounds like Chicanos and that is what the dominant discourse wants to get out of here. She uses the dentist but now that I have reread the essay the dentist is the dominant discourse. “The dentist is cleaning out my roots” She is saying that her identity is being ease by the dominant discourse. The dominant discourse is actually wiping out the Chicanos accent because they are viewed as the “other”. When the dentist says that you can’t cap that tooth, it is still draining , the dominant discourse is trying to do way with the Chicanos population. That is why the students at the University that were Chicanos had to take two English classes because they were seen as the
“other” even by the administration of the University. After Anzaldua tongue was not doing what the dentist wanted he got angry. The dominant discourse wants people to be just like them and the Chicanos don’t sound like the dominant discourse. They are a mix of English and Spanish. It is like those children that have parents from two different ethnics, those children have the best of both worlds. I have a friend that her mother is African American and her father is Puerto Rican. She is applicating for college and she is eligible for a Hispanic scholarships and scholarships for African American. That is one way of looking at it but the Chicanos were not treated like that they were treated like they weren’t welcome. In the Western world they are not received with open hands and in Hispanic communities they are treated like they were an accident. They are treated like they should be there, people aren’t open to change. Change can be good but people usually have an idea that change is never good. The dentist said “Like it or not we are going to have to do something about your tongue”. Which in my opinion she didn’t have a chance whether she wanted to be sucked up into the Western way of life or to be different, which wasn’t the idea of the dominant discourse. She was forced into become a Western and in the process her true or her Chicano identity was taken away from her because it was not seen as the dominant discourse. Anzaldua said, “ my tongue keeps pushing out the wads of cotton, pushing back the drills, the long thin needle, she is being force feed the dominant discourse way of doing things. It is like people who move to different countries when they are old, it is hard for them to adjust to the new lifestyle because they were accustomed to doing things their own way and now it is like they have to change and older people don’t like change. The dentist then said that he has never seen something so strong or stubborn. It is because Anzaldua didn’t want to be force into something. In History it has been proven that if you force someone into something they are more likely to rebel just so that they can go back to their old way. Even if someone knows that something is right they are less likely to do it if they are forced to do it. In the end of that she wonders how you tame a wild tongue. She is starting to doubt whether the Chicano way of life is the best. Throughout history there has been a dominant discourse and the “other”. In most cases Anglos have been the dominant discourse that come and treat the natives as the “other”. One prime example is the Native Americans and the Pilgrims. In Anzaldua’s case it is the Anglos and Chicanos, it was her people against the Westerner. The Chicanos were there first but the Anglos came and they treated them as the “other”. Even as a child Anzaldua was threw into the Western culture because she said that she remember being caught speaking Spanish at recess and received three licks on the knuckles with a sharp ruler. In today’s society Spanish is privileged but back with the dominant discourse, which was the Anglos didn’t privilege Spanish, Chicanos were looked down on when they spoke it. Children only get licks when they have done something wrong so essentially they were showing Anzaldua that speaking Spanish was wrong. Anzaldua was treated like the ¨other¨ because she was a Chicano (26). Their will always be a dominant discourse and the ¨other¨ until people learn how to treat each other. Until societies learn to treat people like they are people and a possession to obtain their will always be the great divide. Their will always be the upper class and the lower class, people will continue to see themselves as better than someone else just because they happen to be rich or more educated. In Anzaldua essay she shows that you could have the best of both worlds if people would just accept the Chicanos. Imagine a world with just the richest and most educated people in it. For starters it would become very dull very fast because humans strike on their difference but they also want to be accepted for their difference. Everyone wants to know that they are at least a little different to the people they are sitting next to. The experience that people face throughout their lifetime is what makes them different. When I was younger my mother told me an analogy about squirrels-she said two squirrels were born in the same place to the same family, grew up and had the same advantages and disadvantages as each other but one squirrel moved away so that he could be better life and the other stayed and did nothing with his life and approximately 10 years past and they reunited and the squirrel that moved away was successful and the one that stayed was not. The point my mother was trying to get across was that because you are privileged or not privilege means that you can’t do great things in life. I am trying to say not because Anzaldua and the Chicanos were not seen as the dominant discourse or even on their level doesn’t mean that they didn’t bring something to the table. They might have been the ¨other¨ but they were an important part of the history. Anzaldua wrote her essay in English and Spanish, it was not for English only or Spanish only speakers but in my opinion it is for everyone so no one will feel left out. In today's society having the able to speak two or more languages is seen as a privileged skill to have. Anzaldua is not saying that Chicanos are perfect actually she is saying that Chicanos your linguistics nightmare (29). She is actually telling the dominant discourse that Chicanos are their nightmare because they didn't sound like the dominant discourse. In Pratt, she shows how the dominant discourse and the “other” can find something to communicate with and for Pratt's son it was baseball cards. He learned everything about baseball and their cards and in that he also learned about the history and math. He learned how to count so that he wouldn't get cheated out of his money. Anzaldua and Pratt both incorporated education in their essays and education also leads to the dominant discourse and the “other” because educated people tend to see thing different than uneducated people. Education creates a gap between people, people are always trying to achieve greatness and being educated makes people feel better than other. Educated people most times don’t want to make people like they are most as intelligent as them but they do. Education has become a great factor in world development and the Western world is developed and they are educated so they see fit that they should influence people on what to do. For centuries societies have placed people in categories by their strengths and weakness or by their intelligence or sometimes even by their appearance. In Anzaldua’s society it was hard for Chicanos to be Chicanos. Which basically meant that you were the lowest of the low to Spanish speakers and English speakers that is how being a Chicano felt to Anzaldua. It was like the Chicanos were the bastard children of English and Spanish and no one wanted to acknowledge their existence. So in turn that made Chicanos feel not welcome. If you don’t have an idea of who you are and where you came from you don’t have a foundation. Without a foundation of your people, culture and heritage you just have the sense that you don’t fit in. I learn that your foundation is important because it is the building blocks of life. In your foundation stage you learn to sound out words, then you learn to spell them, then spell them and you learn to read them and if you don’t have the foundation it would be hard to read something that you don’t know what it sounds like. I have experience being the “other” and the dominant discourse so I can relate to what Anzaldua and the Chicanos were going through. Pratt’s essay tend to look at Guaman Poma’s autoethnography. Anzaldua basically didn’t act and speak in the way that society privileges. The Spaniards didn’t see the Incas on the same level as them because they saw themselves as more educated and experienced. Chicanos were never given a chance to prove that they can be treated as a part of the dominant discourse, they were just pushed out of society and never got a chance because no one wanted to deal with they semi-English and semi-Spanish speakers and they were ruled off. “Tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are.” Mexican saying (33). When I saw that quote I immediately remembered my mother telling my sister and I the same quote and telling us how we would be judged by our friends because society likes to group people into the same categories. I always thought that my mother said that for the sake of saying it. I realize that she was looking out for my sister and me. The Chicanos didn’t have anyone to look out for them because no one was on their side. The dominant discourse didn’t treat them like they exist. Humans in general need to start to accepting each other despite their differences.
Preceding her youth, in 1977, Anzaldua became a High School English teacher to Chicano students. She had requested to buy Chicano texts, but was rejected to do so. The principal of the school she worked for told her, in Anzaldua’s words: “He claimed that I was supposed to teach “American” and English literature.” She then taught the text at the risk of being fired. Anzaldua described, “Being Mexican is a state of soul – not on of mind.” All in all, the reprimanding she had to endure only made her stronger: “Until I can take pride in my language, I cannot take pride in myself.” It led to Anzaldua embracing her Mexican culture even more, contrary to shoving it aside. Anzaldua transformed her beliefs into something both cultures can applaud, and be honored
Anzaldua grew up in the United States but spoke mostly Spanish, however, her essay discusses how the elements of language began to define her identity and culture. She was living in an English speaking environment, but was not White. She describes the difficulty of straddling the delicate changing language of Chicano Spanish. Chicano Spanish can even differ from state to state; these variations as well as and the whole Chicano language, is considered a lesser form of Spanish, which is where Anzaldua has a problem. The language a person speaks is a part...
of the native tongue is lost , certain holidays may not be celebrated the same , and American born generations feel that they might have lost their identity , making it hard to fit in either cultures . Was is significant about this book is the fact it’s like telling a story to someone about something that happened when they were kid . Anyone can relate because we all have stories from when we were kids . Alvarez presents this method of writing by making it so that it doesn’t feel like it’s a story about Latin Americans , when
While Anzaldúa makes great points about the struggles of a Chicana women in America, her arguments imply that Mexican people are the only people that have to adapt to American culture. While Mexican people should feel free to express their cultures freely, language is a much more complex issue; it is not simply solved by not accommodating to English speakers. English speakers must strive to embrace other cultures and languages, and understand that they do not necessarily have to speak that language to accept
America is a presumptuous country; its citizens don’t feel like learning any other language, so they make everyone else learn English. White Americans are the average human being and act as the standard of living, acting, and nearly all aspects of life. In her essay “White Privilege: The Invisible Knapsack,” Peggy McIntosh talks about how being white has never been discussed as a race/culture before because that identity has been pushed on everyone else, and being white subsequently carries its own set of advantages. Gloria Anzaldua is a Chicana, a person of mixed identities. In an excerpt titled “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” she discusses how the languages she speaks identify who she is in certain situations and how, throughout her life, she has been pushed to speak and act more “American” like.
Discourse communities are groups of people with a unique point of view. There are many discourse communities around your everyday life. These communities are part of the entire human environment. Many discourse communities are distinctly large due to all the societies wanting the same things. My discourse communities are mostly Facebook.
At the beginning of the essay, Anzaldúa recounts a time when she was at the dentist. He told her, “We’re going to have to control your tongue” (33). Although he was referring to her physical tongue, Anzaldúa uses this example as a metaphor for language. The dentist, who is trying to cap her tooth, symbolizes the U.S. who is similarly seeking to restrict the rights of minority groups. Nevertheless, the tongue is preventing the dentist from doing his job. Likewise, there are several minority groups who refuse to abide to the laws of dominant cultures and are fighting back. Anzaldúa also touches on a personal story that happened at school. When she was younger, she was sent to the corner because apparently, she spoke back to her Anglo teacher. The author argues that she was unfairly scolded because she was only telling her teacher how to pronounce her name. Her teacher warned her, “If you want to be American, speak American. If you don’t like it, go back to Mexico where you belong.” This short story provides an understanding of what Anzaldúa’s life was like. It demonstrates how even at a young age, she was continually pressured because of where comes
Her goal is to replace the stereotypes surrounding Hispanic women with a set of realities, to help her do that she used her words. Meaning Cofer believes she can empower her readers through “The Myth of the Latin Woman.” Cofer also believes that language can be used to disempower because she explained to her readers how it made her feel when people stereotyped her. “Then I walked between them and to my room. My friend complimented me on my cool handling of the situation, but I confessed that I had really wanted to push the jerk into a swimming pool”(Cofer 112.) This proves that the words the man sang to Cofer had made her feel upset and disempowered. My views on this issue have become a lot more serious since reading Cofer's essay. I have personally not experienced a lot of people stereotyping me the way they did to Cofer and maybe that has something to do with the fact that I live in a diverse city and new society. But regardless if we go through it or not I feel that this is still a fight for every
The language of Gloria Anzaldua’s “We Call Them Greasers” can be used to disseminate the culturally constructed codes and conventions which influence the realities of both the author, and the poems’ fictional speaker. The poem illustrates the intolerant and brutal nature of border rangers as they sought to rid Mexican border towns of their inhabitants. As well as its language, the subject matter of the poem, too, is telling of the author’s cultural influences, which influence the stance she takes on the subject matter. Anzaldua constructs the poem’s speaker, however, to be a person who holds views which are in staunch opposition to her own. This use of clear contradiction helps readers identify underlying messages meant to be conveyed and understood beyond the text of the poem itself.
The contrast between the Mexican world versus the Anglo world has led Anzaldua to a new form of self and consciousness in which she calls the “New Mestiza” (one that recognizes and understands her duality of race). Anzaldua lives in a constant place of duality where she is on the opposite end of a border that is home to those that are considered “the queer, the troublesome, the mongrel and the mulato” (25). It is the inevitable and grueling clash of two very distinct cultures that produces the fear of the “unknown”; ultimately resulting in alienation and social hierarchy. Anzaldua, as an undocumented woman, is at the bottom of the hierarchy. Not only is she a woman that is openly queer, she is also carrying the burden of being “undocumented”. Women of the borderlands are forced to carry two degrading labels: their gender that makes them seem nothing more than a body and their “legal” status in this world. Many of these women only have two options due to their lack of English speaking abilities: either leave their homeland – or submit themselves to the constant objectification and oppression. According to Anzaldua, Mestizo culture was created by men because many of its traditions encourage women to become “subservient to males” (39). Although Coatlicue is a powerful Aztec figure, in a male-dominated society, she was still seen
By the beginning of the twentieth century Mexican Americans found themselves in situations that closely resembled that of American Indians. According to Healey, both ethnic groups were relatively small in size only about .5% of the total population and shared similar characteristics. Both groups are distinguished by cultural and language differences from those of the dominant ethnic groups, and both were conquered, imp...
According to Anzaldua, “ Chicano Spanish is considered by the purist and by most Latinos deficient, a mutilation of Spanish”(Anzaldua 32). The Chicano Spanish versus Spanish conflict that occurs in Latino society is a prime example of people considering themselves to be right in a situation where there is not a right answer. The Latino’s who speak Spanish that they believe to be normal are disturbed by the Spanish language changing. They believe that their own views are being challenged, they believe that they are correct, and they believe that anyone who challenges their views is inferior. The people who view all other views are, in reality, just trying to make themselves look more powerful. Like in Tan’s essay, people demeaned others in order to promote their own views, therefore, gaining power over the others who they demeaned. According to Tan, “ She said they would not give her any more information(...) And when the doctor finally called her daughter, me, who spoke in perfect english-- lo and behold-- we had assurances the CAT scan would be found”(Tan 2). The doctors treated Tan’s mother differently due to her use of what they considered “broken language”, leading to her being treated inadequately. People have an image of what they consider to be the right English, anyone who does not speak the right English is usually considered to be uneducated. In both Tan’s and Anzaldua’s essays, the lack of open-mindedness is one of the reasons that people want to become more powerful than others. People fail to realize that what they believe in is not always the right answer, like with stereotypes, the people are trying to gain power over others in order to make themselves seem more
Montoya, Margret E. "Masks and Identify," and "Masks and Resistance," in The Latino/a Condition: A Critical Reader New York: New York University Press, 1998.
Indigenous people of the world have historically been and continue to be pushed to the margins of society. Similarly, women have experienced political, social, and economical marginalization. For the past 500 years or so, the indigenous peoples of México have been subjected to violence and the exploitation since the arrival of the Spanish. The xenophobic tendencies of Spanish colonizers did not disappear after México’s independence; rather it maintained the racial assimilation and exclusion policies left behind by the colonists, including gender roles (Moore 166) . México is historically and continues to be a patriarchal society. So when the Zapatista movement of 1994, more formally known as the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación National (Zapatista Army of National Liberation; EZLN) constructed a space for indigenous women to reclaim their rights, it was a significant step towards justice. The Mexican government, in haste for globalization and profits, ignored its indigenous peoples’ sufferings. Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico, consisting of mostly indigenous peoples living in the mountains and country, grew frustration with the Mexican government. It was in that moment that the Zapatista movement arose from the countryside to awaken a nation to the plight of indigenous Mexicans. Being indigenous puts a person at a disadvantage in Mexican society; when adding gender, an indigenous woman is set back two steps. It was through the Zapatista movement that a catalyst was created for indigenous women to reclaim rights and autonomy through the praxis of indigeneity and the popular struggle.
Momaday makes me view language in a new way. He has forced me to think about how I speak and treat each word with respect so that I am able to grasp the picture it paints. And I now believe that every word can have a picture if placed correctly, whether it be obvious or merely a color associated with an emotion. The way in which some people abuse words and let them become only the words on a questionnaire is horrifying. It’s as if they lose an emotion, their speech being monotonous and drab. Momaday stresses these points and I feel he has a right to show the revere with which Native Americans regard words and the inconsequence with which many white people view words. If the reader is willing to open their mind’s eye to see the beautiful picture words can paint, Momaday has achieved what he wanted to, as well as brightening the life of that reader.