Gloria Anzaldua's How To Tame A Wild Tongue

Gloria Anzaldua, in “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, uses subtle and open approaches of criticizing the American culture for suppressing other languages through various systems and policies and the minority communities for despising their own language and cultural identity. There are many different languages in the US resulting from immigration of different peoples into the US. While these groups acknowledge their own language and culture, it becomes a daunting challenge to thrive in the American culture by sticking to the native language whereby the dominant culture does not offer such platforms or opportunities. Thus, the author’s critical analysis on the tongue in relation to a people’s language seems to target the various immigrants in the

US who, by complexities of the systems, feel ashamed and let down by the dominant culture to the point of abandoning their own language. In relation to the understanding of racism and minority groups in the US, the author’s critical analysis of people’s language and identity presents a fresh view into cultural values of these minority or foreign groups, and their place in the dominant American culture. The author presents this insightful evaluation which could be viewed from different standpoints; robbing a people of its native language, suppression of reason and questioning and self-identity through language and culture.
Discussion
The first aspect of consideration from the author’s language evaluation is the situation where people are robbed of their language through existing systems.

The author expresses bitterness on the existing conditions in which native people such as the Chicanos and Latinos, who have a native language coupled with Spanish language variations, cannot express themselves in these languages while in the US. Anzaldua believes that people have been robbed of their language through subtle colonization of the mind such that even outside the confines of educational systems, the cultures such as Chicanos and Latinos fear using the language among them while in the US. The author espouses this view by providing examples of how she has had to pick several language variations to speak to her mum and her sisters, a different language variation for her brother in law, and other language variants to communicate with her friends (Anzaldua 77). Through this particular aspect, Anzaldua shows that immigrants into the US often lose their language, not only because of the systems in place, but also due to the personal pressure and quest to fit into the American culture (Anzaldua

80).
While native cultures abandon their native tongues to fit into the American culture, Anzaldua takes the reader through the colonization of the mind and the resulting effect on social relations among members of a given community and on cross-cultural platforms. She records how her mother reprimanded her for not accentuating her English into the American accent saying that her mother was “mortified that I spoke English like a Mexican” (Anzaldua 77). In her view of taming the tongue, struggling to fit into a new culture by accentuating the language is a particularly important aspect of the self-sabotage in relation to one’s language. She seems to question the loyalty and pride of an individual in their cultural language. Although she says that the educational structure subverts the native languages by advising students to take English and another language, reference to family and social relations in terms of Chicana, Latina and Mexican Spanish languages indicates her dissatisfaction in lack of pride and loyalty to the cultural language (81-82).
The second aspect of the language criticism by Anzaldua lies in suppression of reason and questioning about the significance of cultural language among minority or migrant groups in the US. The author observes that members of these groups do not take pride in their own languages which marks the beginning of the deterioration of a culture. Notably important, Anzaldua says that “when people are robbed of their language, they develop their own in order to connect to their identity, values and realities” (Anzaldua 77). The part that is strikingly interesting is her analysis of “why” native people are fear talking to each other in their language. She says it is because “repeated attacks on our native tongue diminish our sense of self”(Anzaldua 80), a statement that elaborates her theme of taming the tongue. When an immigrant looks at the other, in terms of language, they see shame and low self-esteem which makes them struggle to fit into the dominant American English culture by accentuating their Mexican, Spanish, Chicana or Latino English.
Close examination of Anzaldua’s views shows that people abandon their language when they feel the language is associated with all awful issues in the society.

The author’s view augurs well with philosophical views expressed on foreign languages indicating that adoption of a foreign language should be as a means of communication on a cross-cultural platform, but it should not define a people’s personality (García 118). Anzaldua and these philosophical views could be interpolated and extrapolated into other minority groups in the US such as the black community, Chinese and Japanese among others. The author’s assertion that a “monolingual Chicana whose first language is English or Spanish is the same person as a Chicana who speaks variants of Spanish”(80) underlines the significance of one’s native language in relation to the social and cultural practices. Indeed, she presents a number of languages that she has to use in under different circumstances as a means of communication. However, while Anzaldua questions lack of pride and loyalty among minority groups, she also addresses the structural system in the dominant American culture which subverts the native languages probably because they are not cultured. She says that students even at University level are advised to “take French classes because French is considered more cultured” (Anzaldua 81). It could be viewed from the development of her argument that perception of an uncultured language of the minority groups, and the

associated social issues lead to shame and low self-esteem among members of these communities such that none of them wants to use their language. If we digressing from the Spanish communities, it could be seen that the black community in America uses a different accent of American English because they lost their native tongue, a phenomenon that attests to Anzaldua’s views of culture and language. Similarly, since the Spanish variant communities gradually lose their language, cultural and social values embedded in the language are lost, which could explain the animosity and unending differences among different Spanish communities (García 167).
The third aspect of Anzaldua’s analysis hinges on identification of a member of a minority group. Consequently, it is an agreeable assertion that identification of a people lies in the language they speak, which could imply that language transcends the self. Thus, killing a people’s language is equivalent to killing them and Anzaldua argues that “ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity” (81). The question that lingers in the reader’s mind is which language should accommodate the other especially given the dominance of the American culture. The author seems to express her fears on the fate of minority groups in the US observing that the Spanish community might become the least of minority groups in the US. With regard to these fears, some authors argue that although adoption of the dominant language could jeopardize the quest of minority groups to retain their language and cultural identity, other factors such as assimilation and cultural integration could have a significant effect on the minority and migrant groups such as the Spanish and Mexican Latinos (Malave 173). Anzaldua fails to address this issue in her critical language outlook, but she offers a unique suggestion on how to retain her ethnicity in the language context by opting not to drop her language for the dominant American English. While she presents the values of connecting one’s identity with the cultural values, she says that learning two languages such that the native language accommodates the foreign language is important.
Retaining one language in the middle of a dominant subversive language comes with a huge cost. African Americans have had a long struggle to attain equality, rights and freedoms, and fit into the white population even though they had abandoned their native languages and accentuated the American English (Malave 54). The essence of this view in relation to Anzaldua’s arguments is that minority groups are bound to face numerous challenges in order to survive in the American society which could explain the quick change of mannerisms, social and cultural behaviors among the Spanish communities. When viewed from the observation of the shame, low self-esteem and the great quest to fit in, it could be suggested that a member of the minority group wants to see the better self from the viewpoint of the dominant culture. They might hold the perception that once they retain their cultural identities embedded in their language, they would miss out on employment opportunities, suffer from racism and suppression of rights and freedoms (Malave 156).
Anzaldua’s counters the perception of failure of acculturation by arguing that a language defines the people and espouses her counter argument by saying that it would be appropriate for the members of the minority groups to learn another language but not to drop their own. By so doing, they would be relinquishing their political, racial, ancestral and other titles embedded in the language (Anzaldua 84). In addition, they would be exalting the dominant culture rather than empowering their movement to take hold and protect their identity.
In conclusion, the author uses different facets of language to espouse her arguments and underline the importance of upholding the values, principles and social relations embedded in the language of the people. She edifies the principle of self-esteem, valuing one’s identity in the community and taking pride in their ethnicity. However, she does not address the consequences of retaining one’s identity in the language which could be viewed from the standpoint of the African Americans’ struggle towards equality and overcome racial segregation. This could raise a few questions on acculturation, implications and whether or not, retaining one’s ethnicity and language could actually spur the community to better social, political and economic status in the American culture. Nonetheless, she successfully shows that it is not just about killing the taming the tongue but taming the culture of a people.