The main point of Gloria Anzaldua’s article is that within the spanish speaking sphere in America there is a rich history in linguistics. Most importantly there is a community within the speakers of spanish who have a distinct history and dialect, known as the chicanos. The chicano community came to prominence in the late 1960s and the defining characteristics of this group is that they speak various forms of spanish ranging from Tex-Mex to standard spanish. Due to the fact that the people from this group grew up with those who spoke standard spanish telling them that their english spanish hybrid dialects are abominations to the spanish language and anglo english speaker telling them the that they MUST speak “american” or “go back to Mexico where you belong,” these people struggle with self identity. However, at the end of the article Anzaldua claims that she rejects the oppressing criticisms from both sides, announcing that she is chicana and that “nosotros los mexicanos-chicanos will walk by the crumbling ashes as we go about our business.” Signaling her proud heritage and for those like her to be wave their flags as proud chicanos as well.

After reading How to Tame a Wild Tongue I found that I have a very strong connections to this reading and I can relate to Gloria Anzaldua strongly. What I mean by this is that I am a first generation Chinese-American. There is a word for my generation that the older crowd call us, jook sing. Just like chicanas we are defined by our hybrid American-Chinese culture and distinct use of chinese and english of speaking. Also similar to Anzaldua’s experience, it creates a lot of identity issues. For all of my childhood, teen and now early adulthood I have grappled with finding who I am and where i belong as a first generation Chinese-American citizen. The truth of the matter is it that it is hard feeling as though you cannot just identify and fit in so simply. It is not that I felt rejected, because I feel as though I am part of both communities. However, the problem is that I do not feel like I can fully be a part of either. One side criticizes me for adapting an American life style while using Chinese in conjunction with english, echoing the point Anzaldua made. The other side of me will never feel like I am fully belonging to the American community cause quite frankly I am different both physically and in tradition. I cannot tell you many times I have walked into a bar filled with old white guys and called it a night after a few beers just because how different I feel in there. However, I don’t want blame either Chinese crowd or white crowd for the way I feel. Sure in my childhood I might have gotten bulled for bringing something different for lunch at school or some obnoxious kid telling me something in grade school, but I blame it on myself. Those men in the bar aren’t out right racists from what I can see, in a twisted way its just me being racists towards myself in a sense. After reading this I am going to try to build on the pride Anzaldua harrows in her text.

I believe that this text is going to influence my writing significantly. There are so many ideas and explanations in this text that I want to use in my own provided the opportunity. I did not think that this reading would have interested me, and to be quite honest I was not so happy I had to do the homework. After reading the text and thinking a lot more about it in this homework I am glad I had the opportunity to read it. This reading has changed me a little bit. I want to write about and embrace my heritage as Gloria Anzaldua has done.