I found the section on language, chapter 5, to be very interesting. I myself often watch Mexican soap operas, and most of the slang language I have heard before, usually is spoken from characters that are considered to be lower economic class. This could also used as reference to when she stated that “Chicanas who grew up speaking Chicano Spanish have internalized the belief that we speak poor Spanish” (80). Somehow the belief is that the Chicano Spanish is not as “good” as the Standard Spanish or even English. This gives them low self-esteem but it's doubly difficult since they are in the border region and it's something that was created as a reaction to the situation that they are in. Anzaldua is making a great point that language can be used as a separator. Because of the borders, people now have developed their own language that they use to express themselves since they are in between two culture and two languages.
Language here is also considered an identity that she choses, just as her choice to be a poet. She learned the conventional Standard English but she prefers Spanish. This debate over language is still very present today. The headline for a Fox News article reads “Schwarzenegger to Immigrants: Avoid Spanish-Language Media.” Somehow there is so much stress for non-English speaking immigrants to learn English. I agree with Anzaldua that language is an identity and by forcing people to speak only one language is somehow forcing them to give up a part of their culture and their identity. I trace this back to This Earth of Mankind when Minke got a European education and could not write in Javanese. He later on had to have someone else translate his article into Javanese. It seems that something essential is lost when you lose your native language.
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I agree with the points that Nancy made. Language is an important source of identity for people. Being able to speak the same language is an important element to making people feel as if they belonged to the imagined community of "nationhood." Language shapes the way we think, so it's frightening that the Chicano Spanish that's spoken on the borderlands is considered inferior. This is an excellent way of marginalizing a people, and creating an inferiority-complex in a people. Nancy discussed how it reminds her of how Minke "lost" his native language. It also reminds me of how Conrad dehumanizes the Africans by making it seem as if they speak in grunts, and have no language. It seems that labeling a language as "superior" or "inferior" is an important tool of colonization.
ReplyDeleteNancy's comment on Language touches base with the discussion we had on Tuesday about categories and the effect they have of forming one's identity. Much thought was given to the idea that Anzaldua's narrative acts as a critique of the construction of categories, if not, as encouragement to her readers to question such constructs. If this is so, then language only serves to reinforce her argument. As a separator, language has the power to label and limit the role of the individual in society. Therefore, through the use of language, something so natural and relevant to all, Anzaldua is able to highlight the negativity behind the construction of categories.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Anzaldua uses several ideas -- gender, sexuality-- and in this case, language as well, to strengthen the idea that they are not in fact helpful in defining identities but instead harmful. Because they are categorized there is inevitably a value system placed on different languages. The language she chooses again is the one which most don't speak (chicano) because of its insignificance when compared to Spanish or English.
ReplyDeleteYour last statement is powerful and I think the essence of several chapters in the novel. When language becomes a took that is used to strip someone of their own nationhood and force them to take on another it becomes a type of warfare. If as Anzaldua states, language is a breathing evolving creature, then to force it to be a certain way or by declaring that it doesn't exist, doesn't that become a type of murder?
Yes, I agree.Everything about a person creates his or her identity, form sexuality to language. Anzaldua makes a great point when she saids that even language can make people inferior to the other. But what can one do if they live smack in the middle of north and south America? This is the hybrid, the half and half... Thus this "orphan tongue," whose parents (English/Spanish origin) refuses to acknowledge it.
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