In How to Tame a Wild Tongue the author wrote a quote that says “I am my own language.” This quote really stood out in the story and meant something. To me this quote meant that everyone has their own personality and culture they go by and nothing can change that. Everyone is unique in their own way. In my household, I can relate to Anzaldúa’s because everyone in my household also speaks Spanish. I talk to my siblings and my dad in English most of the time and while my mom speaks English too, we mainly speak to her in Spanish. The reason is because she is more comfortable speaking in it. In the story a quote I can relate to that Anzaldúa’s wrote was, “Being Mexican is a state of soul—not one of mind, not one of citizenship. Neither eagle nor serpent, but both. And like the ocean, neither animal respects borders.” This quote impacts me in a similar way even though I am Dominican. The meaning I get out of this is that your heritage and nationality should be embraced because that is who you are. It also means that you should be willing to speak it publicly and not be ashamed of it no matter how different the people around you are.

When it comes to how many languages I have it’s a little more than 5 different types. A saying that tends to make me feel like who I am and its something I say all the time is “my son.” I don’t why but me and my friends usually say that often to each other. An example is when we agree on something about anything we’ll just be like “my son” to each other. Saying my son is usually said to someone who is your bro. I’m not sure where this saying is from but I do know a lot of my friends say it also. I’m the person to use this term on a daily when talking to my friends. Similar to Anzaldúa and her different languages, not everyone can understand what these things mean if you say it to an outsider.

There are a lot of sayings I use between me and my friends that a lot of outsiders don’t know. One of the that I also use often is “you sold the bag.” This is something me and my friends say to the person who cost us to lose the game. Usually we say this while playing PS4 or while playing anything that involves competition where you have teammates. One time I was playing Warzone on PlayStation with three other friends and one of my friends died during a critical moment and everyone in the party was like “Bro you sold the bag heavy.” This is a saying that if I said it to my parents they wouldn’t understand it at all and might think you’re literally selling a bag. I do have things I say with my parents that outsiders don’t know but this is definitely not one of them.