Gloria Anzaldúa's How To Tamme A Wild Tongue

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In Gloria Anzaldúa’s “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, an excerpt from her book Borderlands/La Fronter in 1987, she demonstrates that identity can be asserted through language. You can tell a lot about a person by their language. Language is your way of representing who you are as a person, and most importantly, your culture. Culture defines the most about a person. Anzaldúa shares her aggravation of not being able to speak her language, “until I can take pride in my language, I cannot take pride in myself" (Anzaldúa 378). Being seen as an individual of English as Second Language (ESL), Anzaldúa does not appreciate how she has to assist in translating to English or Spanish, where she would rather speak Spanglish. “[A]s long as I have to accommodate the English speaker rather than having them accommodate me, my tongue will be illegitimate” (Anzaldúa 378). Talking bad about her language severely impacts her identity, “I am my language” (Anzaldúa 378). A person’s identity should not be seen less because of the language they speak. Anzaldúa states that she will have her voice, though she cannot express her passion for her language with the restraint of no freedom act to embrace it, she will. Her audiences that she is reaching to are those who share the same struggle of their identities just like her, and also speaking out to people who do look down upon people like her because of where she is form and what language she speaks. Anzaldúa starts her argument with a personal story of her at the dentist that illustrates her point perfectly. The dentist tells her that “[he’s] never seen anything as strong or as stubborn” (Anzaldúa 373), talking about her tongue. She grew up in South Texas where she spoke Chicano Spanish, an offspring of Engli... ... middle of paper ... ...s her argument once more, her tone is very stern and biased to her own personal view on the situation. Her essay has a very annoyed and bothered tone to it. Nonetheless, she does so in a very calm and abrupt way. Anzaldúa sets a heavy emphasis on language, whereas I believe that the name of their culture of people is just as important. An example of a coffee brand, it does not necessarily matter where or not has an amazing boost, but rather if the coffee did not have a name, what is the use that other people will buy it? Starbucks, anyone? Yes, definitely! Moreover, in Anzaldúa’s essay, she writes that till the day they got a name and a language, the Chicano’s came together and felt like people. The Chicanos may have kept their tongue, but their fighting spirit came from being united as a nation, going through the same struggle, sharing that bond of power together.

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