How To Tame A Wild Tongue
The whole article was great and had a lot of quotes and meanings, but what my group and I found most intriguing was a quote that really hit me. "So, if you really want to hurt me, talk badly about my language". Anzaldua also mentioned "Ethnic identity is twin to linguistic identity- I am my language". This shows how much Anzaldua takes pride in her language. As mentioned before in class, a person's language and culture is what defines, without culture or a language, you will not belong anywhere and you will not have an identity. This is of the main reasons Anzaldua doesn't want to let her language leave.
Another way Anzaldua connects language to identity is by using historical details to show how changes in the Chicano language affected the people as a whole. She makes various distinctions between Chicano Spanish and the standard Spanish spoken in Mexico and most other parts of the world. She makes the point that the new language came out of necessity because Chicanos didn’t feel a connection to either American English or Mexican Spanish, and they had no other way to connect themselves and to identify themselves as a people than by creating a new language to bond them together. The new language became an integral part of Chicano identity as it helped the people identify themselves with others of their ethnicity. Later on in the essay, Anzaldua alludes to various Chicano musicians,writers, and even films made her feel more pride not only in the Chicano language, but in herself, showing the strong connection between language and identity.
