The first reading entitled How to Tame a Wild Tongue by Gloria Anzaldua goes into detail about moments and realizations that led her to grow defiant against cultural assimilation in not only the US but in Latino, Mexican, and other Spanish speaking communities in the places she lived and grew up in. Anzaldua seemed to grow more and more passionate about her Chicana heritage as she continued to face censorship from her own people, and had a chip on her shoulder about being shut down at times for speaking the way she naturally did. As the reading progresses Anzaldua sheds light on the discrimination she and other Chicana come across — sometimes among themselves — and how it only strengthens her deep bond to the language. She cites an ongoing struggle for identity, yet hopes that one day such struggle will cease, and hammers the point home by saying that the mestizos and mestizas will remain.
The second and final text, The Meanings of a Word, explores the experiences of a young Gloria Naylor with the word “nigger”. We can infer from the title alone that a word (which we learn refers to the n-word) can have many different meanings, and it certainly did to Naylor. Around the house it was used for a completely different effect, and had positive connotations to intelligence, pride, and solidarity. Despite this, there were times when it was used in a worse way, and the writer was not unfamiliar to the word’s use in such a way; however, it wasn’t until a fellow classmate used it to humiliate her when Naylor discovered that she was in the dark.
Response:
I am reminded of the popular expression “ignorance is bliss”. Within their own circles and communities, both Anzaldua and Naylor (both Gloria, what do you know!) had their fair shares of ups and downs concerning their respective languages, yet were overall self-regulating and somewhat pure. It seemingly wasn’t until an outside perspective began imposing themselves unto the two writers that they began to think differently and question some things that they never really thought had much depth.