•   You may remember that our course is called “Language, Identity, and Representation.”  We have talked a lot about language, and we’ve talked a lot of identity, but we haven’t addressed representation yet.  By representation, we mean the ways that individuals, groups, and experiences are depicted, written about, and presented to us.  To begin thinking about representation, I would like you to find a piece of media whose representation of a particular identity strikes you as being exactly right, totally problematic, or somewhere in-between, and be prepared to share it in class on Wednesday.   The term “media” is very broad; your selection could be an advertisement, a music video, a television show, a meme, a newspaper story, a comedy routine, a film, a character in a novel, etc….   Think about something you’ve seen that you have had a strong reaction to – either because it handles representation in a way that you really like and appreciate or because you found it offensive or troubling.  In advance of class, please create a new post and share the piece of media you have selected.   If you have selected something long like a tv show, please select and share a short clip that would illustrate what you have in mind.  Explain your choice in a few sentences. What have you selected? What representation are you highlighting? What do you find noteworthy about the representation? Your selection must be posted by noon on Wednesday.

Believe it or not, we are halfway through the semester. This is a great time to pause and reflect on how the course has been going for you and to think about what you hope to accomplish in the remaining half of the semester. Please respond thoughtfully and fully to the Mid Semester Reflection, which you can access HERE. Your reflection must be completed by Sunday, October 23rd.

If you have questions about your attendance record, missing assignments, Literacy Narrative feedback, or anything else pertaining to our work together, don’t hesitate to reach out.

    In the text “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” by Gloria Anzaldua the section that stuck out to me was the “Linguistic Terrorism” section. While reading, I found myself interested in the part where she talked about how a century later it will be very likely that Chicanos will be speaking English as their home language instead of Chicano Spanish. I found that statement upsetting due to the idea that they might end up losing their language because of how often they were speaking English. This made me think about how the U.S. society is impacting how I as well as many others use the languages we know. For the most part, the U.S forces people to understand and use English often. This can be seen in schools where they force everyone to get a good understanding of the language. Anzaldua gave an example of this in the text where she explained how all the Chicano students in her college had to take classes in order to get rid of their accent. It is also seen in many of the services we receive that we have to communicate to the people working there in English. Overall, the major language used to communicate with others in the U.S. is English. The society we live in today has made it difficult for many people to live in the U.S. that don’t understand English. They made English a necessity and forced everyone to normalize the use of it. Nowadays, I feel somewhat unconfident in my skills to speak my native language. Over the years I have gotten used to speaking English often and this led to me speaking my native language a lot less and that contributed to my overall feelings of being unconfident in speaking my language. I used to speak the language often at home but now I mostly speak English and only use my native language when talking to my parents. This is similar to how in the text the Chicanos felt that they were speaking Chicano Spanish around other Chicanos. I feel like it is important that people speak their native languages because the text mentioned how language can connect to our culture and identity so by losing our language we are losing a part of our identity and culture. There is a way we can sovle this problem and it involves people normalizing the use of other languages and normalizing that all variations of a language are valid within society. By doing this it can help to maintain the use of other languages and can help to prevent these languages from being removed from our identities

I decided to go with the first section of the text. To go over the first section briefly, Anzaldua talks about a time when she goes to the dentist. While being there, the dentist made the remark that her tongue is stubborn. She turns this into a comparison of how people also want to suppress her language. She then talks about her experience in school. She was once caught speaking Spanish and got punished for it. When she tried correcting her teacher about the pronunciation of her name she was told to not “talk back”. She also faced this at the hands of her mother. Her mother was distraught that her daughter was speaking English like a “Mexican”. In school she was given two speech classes which she claimed were to get rid of her accent. In the end of the section, Anzaldua leaves with the remark that you can’t tame a tongue, you can only cut it.

There are many things to go over here. For example, starting off with the flashback to her in the dentist. Why did she do this? I believe she did this because she wanted to give the reader a literal example of someone trying to suppress her tongue before the examples of where people figuratively suppress her tongue. Although there is a difference of literal and figurative, I think a similarity lies within both examples. One similarity is that her tongue and language are both unpleasant to the people around her. She was able to tell that the dentist was beginning to become frustrated with her tongue, she also remarked that it did not smell good. Her language was unpleasant for her teachers, which is proven by the times she got it with a ruler for speaking Spanish, and when she is told to not “talk back” and that if she didn’t like it she should go “back to Mexico where she belongs”. I wonder why they find it so unpleasant, but we can use her getting hit with rulers as an indicator that this probably happened a while ago when discrimination was more prominent.

Another thing that stuck out to me was the phrase, “Wild tongues can’t be tamed, they can only be cut out”. To me, this is confusing. Maybe it’s a perspective discrepancy. I don’t see why you can’t “tame” your toungue by just speaking English in certain settings. However, Anzaldua could make the argument that you may have cut off your language for a brief moment. The situation does become different when we talk about accents. Im not exactly sure how you would tame an accent, so I can agree, but I don’t know how cutting a language would help.

In the essay “How to tame a Wild Tongue”, In one of her sections of the essay “Overcoming the Tradition of Silence”, she talks about how people are being silenced through their language. Not being able to speak or express how we feel, or our own beliefs causes to have problems among society. Meaning that certain proposals being said cannot be down or are not continued because of how we fall in the ranking system of authority among our society.

We are constantly following orders, or taught to listen since little to higher authority, whether it be parents, teachers, professors, staff, faculty, etc. Causing us to not really express ourselves how we would really want to and like to, instead we let others do it for us- to do the speaking. At times we stay quiet when higher authority tells us something and the reason, we stay quiet is because that’s what we were taught. What the other person might’ve said could have been something you disagree entirely on, but we stay quiet, out of respect.

In the reading she states “Es una falta de respeto to talk back to one’s mother or father”. I can relate to this quote very well because ever since I was little and had common sense my parents especially my mom would always tell me this and coming from a Hispanic household talking back was a sign of disrespect and no morals, because I grew up like this and was taught this way I never really knew when to respond for myself or speak up for myself, because I was showing respect. Even when being scolded by my aunt and I knew I was getting in trouble or scolded for something I didn’t do I had to stay shut because she is the adult in the relationship and I’m the “child”. Growing up like this all my years, when I come encounter with someone who doesn’t stay quiet when someone higher than them in authority is speaking to them would surprise me, because it wasn’t something that wasn’t often happening around my life. But in this person doing so it has made me realized that, that person was just speaking up for themselves and defending themselves where they thought they had to. Throughout the years I’ve learned that it is okay to talk back when you must, when you feel it’s right. But there other oftentimes where sometimes the best option is to stay quiet to not make things worse.

In the essay “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” by Gloria Anzaldua, she talks about self identity between her mom and the rest of her family. In the section of “Si le preguntas a mi mama, “¿Qué Eres?”, she explains how “Chicanos” express themselves as an identity. A form of expression is calling themselves “Mexicanos”. However, it does not necessarily mean they are citizens of Mexico or have national identity of Mexico, but it is mainly to express their race. This is relevant to me because I am a person who has a Mexican background and when I am asked what I am, I tend to say I am Mexican. Similar to what Gloria said, that does not mean I am a citizen or that I am born there. I say I am Mexican because my parents are born in Mexico and my family is Mexican which means I am a Mexican race.

I was able to relate with the specific section mainly because I have given a similar response when I am asked “¿Qué Eres?”. Gloria states, “Si le preguntas a mi mamá, “¿Qué Eres?” te dirá, “Soy mexicana.”.  My brothers and sister say the same.” Growing up I’ve heard many different kinds of self identity involving a person with a Mexican background. I’ve heard “Mexican American” or “Hispanic”. When I was younger I would get confused on what to respond to. I knew saying just American would be wrong because being an American to me meant being white. I was not white so I knew that simply saying American was incorrect. Therefore, I would say I am Mexican American. However, recently I started to wonder whether Mexican American was a correct term. Nowadays I say that I am simply Mexican. In the essay it states a quote, “Identity is the essential core of who we are as individuals, the conscious experience of the self inside.” I believe that identity is very important for a person to know and feel comfortable with. I personally am not ashamed to say that I am Mexican because I honor my parents background and culture. But in some cases it is not always like that for me. When I go to Mexico for vacation and I tell my cousins I identify as Mexican, they slightly disagree and they tell me I am simply just American because I was born in the US and in that case it makes me American. It makes me realize that maybe if you are born in a specific place you should identify as that specific place. Sometimes I feel confused on what exactly to identify myself with.

From our reading of Gloria Anzaldua’s “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” one theme I chose and personally related to was “talking back” for telling the teacher on how to pronounce a name correctly. Similarly to my essay, saying a name correctly is important for the person themselves but for those who are pronouncing their name. A name identifies who you are in society and that name can influence your future. A miscalling of a name shouldn’t be taken lightly and shouldn’t be ignored. As stated in Gloria Anzaldua’s “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, “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 corner 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. “If you want to be American, speak American.’ If you don’t like it, go back to Mexico where you belong.” This quote shows that students were punished for “talking back” and that they were getting told by their teachers to go back to their country because they spoke another language besides American. I could relate to this because I had to apply for a school when I came to the United States and once it was my turn to go into the school , the teachers looked at me and asked “What is your name?” My parents replied to them saying my legal name and they were confused. The teacher repeated my name, and my parents corrected her. As the teacher said my name again, she didn’t bother correcting herself when my parents told her how to say it. Although we told her many times and my parents gave her time to say it, she still lazily said it like she wanted to move on her day. My family and I were shocked when we first heard this because in China the teachers were strict and eager in pronouncing Chinese and foreign name even though they may not speak any English. Instead of being punished for “talking back” or going back to China for having a Chinese name and not an English name ,we left on our own to look for another school. Knowing someone’s name establishes a relationship between one another but if you don’t know what their name is or how to pronounce it, it could lead to problems.

The quote from Gloria Anzaldua’s essay that I chose is “Overcoming the Tradition Of Silence”. The reason I chose this quote was it sparked a memory of mine of when I was young. Similarly to Gloria tradition in her family, strict rules were set in my household/culture. In my brown family household, kids manners were held to a high standard, this means we were taught to greet guests formally when they came over, not to talk back to elderly and act as a role model for younger siblings and lastly develop into an individual that can do chores and think for themselves. These behavior skills were drilled into me through “small talks”. Whenever I did something that was not appropriate one my parents would wait until all the guests left and then tell me the thing I should work on. Some things they would say are “you don’t say cow in this way but you say it a different way, a more formal way.” However this form of approach wasn’t always used.. There were times where I was judged in front of guests. I hated that as I felt ashamed when that would happen as it put me on the spot, but that fear of not saying it wrong really affected my mentality. Now that I’m older I come to realize the main reason that my parents did that was to diminish the way I said something. The reason for diminishing the way I said something was because I have become so accustomed to saying it that way that I say it unconsciously and haven’t fixed it. But after being put in a situation where my morals are being challenged I start to change how I say it so I do not get embarrassed again. In Glorias description of her quote she also speaks about how her family and culture despised children that talk back to their parents and elders. When I was young when I would talk back to my parents or guests that came over it wasn’t really harshly reprimanded but when I got older I would receive meetings on how I should listen to what is said and to not question it and to not make up an excuse to do otherwise. For example my mother would tell me “tanvir clean up your room” and I would reply with “I will do it later” or “I don’t have time to do it now”. After my reply is initiated I am stared at, I would one day be told to attend a meeting at my living room and explain how it was bad for me to talk back. At first I didn’t really think to myself as if I was talking back, but my mother told me otherwise. She made the statement that when a elderly person tells you to do something it means you must get it done right away. To me her definition meant when  someone of power/authority tells you to do something, they are actually commanding you to do it, and when you’re commanded you have to do it as quickly as possible.

In the essay “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, Gloria Anzaldua in her subsection “Overcome the Tradition of Silence”, she introduces the issues coinciding with how people are silenced through language. Without being able to express our own opinions we have many problems in society with not being able to approve upon the problems we have. Ideas from certain people would be shut down simply because of their authority in society that they may be unable to control. This is rather evident in our own experiences and we have all been shut down at least once in our lives due to the American educational system.

When we are kids, and throughout our schooling, we are always taught to listen to the higher authority and not to question the decision making of the adults that are telling us a direction. Maybe it is to stop talking at lunch, or to walk in a certain way to get to your next class. Although we are unaware, this is a method that we are being taught that in certain scenarios, we should stop expressing ourselves in our own individual way. When we are taught to listen to any adult that is giving us direction, we are taught that our opinions as kids are less than them and our thoughts are less important than them.

In my life, I specifically deal with this mainly due to the limitations of my age. My parents do not believe many of the ideas I express, whether it is reasoned by their relations to the evidence I tell them on certain topics, or if it is due to their ideas on a certain topic because of their previous experiences. Many believe that due to the longer life experiences of the eldest, that they are the wisest, and this is the idea that we are taught to stand by in school and even in our own households. Are we just supposed to blindly follow the older generation’s ideas because their ideas worked twenty years before we were born? There would be no generation of customs, ideas, art, even math. If the founding fathers did not question the ideas being brought about by the English kingdom, America would not stand today as an individual country. Our experiences in modern day society should not be silenced due to the stereotypes brought upon the “rank” of our language or dialect or any background for that matter, and rather should be open to discussion so we can make the world push further towards creating new culture and ideas. 

Building on our reading of Gloria Anzaldua’s “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” and our discussion about it in class on Monday, please compose a personal response to the text. Turn to one of the seven sections of the essay (marked by red titles), choose one, and use the theme of that section as a jumping off point to think about something pertaining to that theme that you have encountered or considered in your own life. Share this reflection in the form of a blog post. Your post should be a minimum of 400 words and must be posted by noon on Wednesday.