Morgan Evans
English 1100
August 31, 2015
Prof. Young
What is Identity
1. " My tongue keeps pushing out the wads of cotton, pushing back the drills, the long thin needles. I've never seen anything as strong or as stubborn." This opening scene and quote from the beginning of How to Tame a Wild Tongue expresses the main message of this essay. Throughout the essay she writes about her hardships and experiences growing up speaking another language. Through her struggles she remained constant and unchanging in her identity; Gloria continued speaking her language when many tried to stop her from doing that. You can say that Gloria was "stubborn" like the doctor said by remaining true to her identity as a Chicano.
2. Anzaldua used Spanish in her writing of How to Tame a Wild Tongue to allow the reader to understand her struggle with English throughout her life. Reading her essay, the use of Spanish did make sense. Most of the time when she used Spanish would be when one of her family members would say something, and if she translated it too English for everyone it would lose the emotions that's wrapped up in it.
3. Identity(language) can not have classifications on them, whether its standard or non-standard. Every person grows up in different places and with that each persons identity is different as well. For people who don't fit in to a certain identity like Spanish or English then they create their own. " For people who cannot identify with either standard Spanish or standard English, what recourse is left to the but to create their own language? A language which they can connect their identity to." The amount of languages that came out of not fitting into the particular Spanish standard made it possible for every person connect to their identity. Because many languages have come about they have separated from the standard Spanish.
4. How we as people speak and write is our identity, it also can express our identity. In Academic English speaking/writing is important because its our tool to express our identity. And because everyone has their own identity it helps us to separate ourselves from everyone else.
5. Just like how Spanish has different types of identities English does too. Most teenagers who have phones use text lingo, which is using acronyms to talk to people.
6. Like Pachuco I had a secret language me and a couple of friends would use. We called our language Op. If we wanted to say something like I love you we would add op to every consonant and keep vowels alone. So to say I loe you, in my language would be I lop-o-vop-e yop-o-u.
7. When talking to friends and parents I speak non standard Englis compared to speaking to my professor. Talking to a teacher has more pressure to talk grammatically correct and proper than talking to friends which iis moe relaxed.
8. "I am my language" means how I speak is me. Whichever language I talk in is a part of my identity. This also means that what I say is me, and what I do is me, it is who I am.
9. An introduction is the beginning to anything you write or read. It explains everything you are further going to read/write. In How to Tame a Wild Tongue both the intro and conclusion are similar by stating how the Chicanos are stubborn and that they will always keep on going. The conclusion just states the same thing as the intro but shows it in a different way.
10. The langage you speak is a part of your identitiy. In every area of the worl everyone speaks differenty. Each language is different and eaach person who speaks that language is as well. However sometimes even if you can't speak the language it can still be your identity. For Irish people many cannot speak Gaelic but still say Irish is there identity.
11. Identity is important. It allows people to feel like they matter.Gloria also thinks highly of identity when she states," Until I can take pride in my language, I cannot take pride in myself."
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