How To Tame A Wild Tongue By Gloria Anzaldúa

In “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, Gloria Anzaldúa exposes her feelings about social and cultural difficulties that Mexican immigrants face when being raised in the United States. She establishes comparisons among English, Spanish and their variations and cultural influence on people’s “preference” to speak one language rather than the other. Anzaldúa uses ethos to effectively characterize her personal accounts of how the languages she spoke hindered her by presenting her evidence in a clear and credible manner by showing both sides of the argument because of the deep emotional connection she feels towards the use of both Spanish and English while talking when it isn’t the norm of the surrounding people.
Anzaldúa started off her passage with

a trip to the dentist and how her tongue was “wild” metaphorically describing her native language. “"We're going to have to do something about your tongue… I’ve never seen anything as strong or as stubborn” (Anzaldúa 33). Spanish speakers have a tendency to speak rapidly and fast and when they speak English they tend to speak fast as well. She used this analogy to set the tone for her entire passage relates to her appeal to ethos by establishing the ethical ideas of her purpose with taming her wild tongue. She uses the anecdote to distinguish a connection with her audience by starting off with something that everyone understands so she can get into the complexity of hardships of bi-lingual assimilating into the English culture.
Anzaldúa’s personal account of how speaking her native affected her as a child gave her a connection with her audience because she showed her emotions about what it felt like.

“I remember being caught speaking Spanish at recess - that was good for three licks on the knuckles with a sharp ruler. I remember being sent to the comer of the classroom for "talking back" to the Anglo teacher when all I was trying to do was tell her how to pronounce my name” (Anzaldúa 34). She showed that she was punished directly for speaking her native tongue. Ultimately, enhancing the reader’s ability to empathize with her on what she has gone through. However, with this empathy lies a divide by the use of her personal experience. Using personal examples allows her to build her credibility within her audience because she uses her experience to shine a light on the hardships she and other bi-lingual Spanish speakers encountered daily. She, like many others, lived through “taming of her wild tongue” while trying to get the “Anglo Whites” to understand how being forced to speak another language perfectly because they didn’t want to accept the difference. There is the urgency of adaption for the Hispanics to speak English fluently and without an accent so they were

punished.
The use of both Spanish and English style results in a text which weaves together multiple threads in order to approach a central idea. Anzaldúa’s piece suggests, solutions, peoples, and interpretations are multiple; no easy alliances can be found in such a population as “our own people” or “Spanish speakers.” Gloria stressed the importance of identifying with, speaking, and propagating our mother tongue as we strive to retain our cultural identity. “I am my language” (Anzaldúa 39). This is a strong ethos connection with the audience because she accepts her language and she is proud of her culture and nobody should take it away. She wants her audience to understand that because she is different doesn’t mean that she isn’t educated and she isn’t a part of the English culture, she is living both cultures of her family. The Chicano Spanish sprang out of the Chicanos' need to identify themselves as a distinct people. They used language as a means of expression besides communicating. Discovering a sense of pride from her Latino culture opened a doorway of opportunity into her academic culture. She discovers that her people being patient have endured and she adapts to the same philosophy. Knowing she has evolved and is a part of a new future she accepts both cultures positives and negatives and uses them to inspire her writings.
Ethnic identity is a twin to linguistic identity; therefore the critique of one's way of speaking also criticizes who the individual is. Not only does language shape individuals, it shapes all environments. Anzaldúa calls this "Linguistic Terrorism" because it is an attack on individuals to shape what is acceptable and what is not, which also creates a hierarchy. Just because one form of Spanish is different from another does not mean that either is more or less authentic. Her main point is to support and further promote the acceptance of all languages and accents. “Until I am free to write bilingually and to switch codes without having always to translate, while I still have to speak English or Spanish when I would rather speak Spanglish, and as long as I have to accommodate the English speakers rather than having them accommodate me, my tongue will be illegitimate.” (Anzaldúa 39-40). Anzaldúa is making herself very clear and concise about her “Linguistic Terrorism” because she as a bilingual speaker should have the right to speak as she wishes and to express her right to “Freedom of Speech.” As she said, she shouldn’t have to change her ways of speaking because someone doesn’t understand her, why can’t people attempt to learn and accommodate her language. She is trying to assert her right as an American citizen to attempt to gain support for her argument about bilingual speakers. Anzaldúa believes that robbing a people of their language is a violent act because of the immense amount of damage that it does to a person's sense of identity.
Robbing someone of their language is robbing them of who they truly are, we can speak the Anglo language but will never suit it the Anglo way.

To Anzaldúa language is power, but more than power it is the identity of many cultures wrapped into one for a single person, it is how that assimilate themselves with many cultures at the same time. In her text she goes back to her childhood where her mother told her she needed to speak English because it is best for her future. “I want you to speak English. Pa' hallar buen trabajo tienes que 5 saber hablar el ingles bien. Que vale toda lu educacion si todavia hablas ingles con un 'accent” (Anzaldúa 34). By sharing this connection with her mother she is asserting a habitus while growing up. It was becoming a collection of habits of people making her change the way she was because people didn’t understand what she was saying and it would affect her future because people weren’t accepting her culture. She is establishing a stronger connecting with her audience because many of the Hispanic culture faced these challenges, but she is also connecting with the Anglo side of her audience because she is showing them that because her language wasn’t accepted her own mother was trying to change her because it would affect her future as an American citizen. She is strongly expressing that the change affected much more than her speech, it affected her emotionally and it affected her

culture.
Over the course of her text, Gloria Anzaldúa exercises her freedom of speech to express her concern about bilingual oppression. As she was growing up she faced hardships because of her ability to speak Spanish and English fluently. She preferred Spanish over English because it was her native tongue, her friends and family all spoke Spanish in different forms from different parts of the world. These children had to face the hardships of assimilating into an English speaking culture while being punished for being different, Anzaldúa lived through the experiences of the hardships face, and she was punished for executing her right as an American citizen to express her own language as her Freedom of speech. Anzaldúa attempts presenting this idea by giving factors of one's (dual) identity through layers upon layers and leading into her true statement. She and many other suffered oppression because of whom and what they represent in an American culture that is threatened by anyone who is not of white color.