Gabrielle Nolan Week 3 Reading Response

Anzaldua disagrees with this idea because she grew up trying to speak both English and Spanish fluently without a foreign accent. She didn’t believe there were entirely “different universes”, she believed that as long as she could speak the language without any trouble, that she could fit in. Her only problem was trying to take pride in her language. It was hard because she felt as if she had to change her “tongue” for English speakers and accommodate their accent rather than vice versa. There was never the idea of uncommon realties between different languages. The quote I found was “I will have my serpent’s tongue- my woman’s voice, my sexual voice, my poet’s voice. I will overcome the tradition of silence.” This aids in explaining why she disagrees with one of the theories of language, simply because her problem wasn’t different universes, it was different accents. 

While reading Anzaldua’s piece, I found it very descriptive and personal. The start of the essay includes a description of the dentist getting mad about their tongue getting in the way of cleaning their roots. The introduction ends with “How do you make it [the tongue] lie down?”. Personally, I think this style of detailed memories of the writer’s past helps the readers connect more with the writer and their story. Anzaldua is telling a story of the struggle of learning English while speaking Spanish. In this, she wants the readers to feel “closer” to her by sharing stories of her childhood and how people treated her and her lack of English. 

Liao’s convention of “every literacy narrative has a takeaway for the reader” was prominent in this essay. At the end of the essay, the writer states “Understanding doesn’t mean that you can suddenly speak the language.” This means that even if you are capable of translating words, there is more to understanding what people are saying than just their words. The irony in the end of this essay was that no matter how mean the teacher was, the second he understood what the teacher was saying, he wanted them to talk more and more. This is ironic because the teacher was calling him a “fool”, but he wanted to hear more words from them, even if it was bad, because he was finally understanding the language. 

Yes and no, I believe she feels better by the end of the essay, yet still has feelings of sadness. Manson’s essay made me feel sad while reading it because of the tone set. The piece didn’t end on a high note about the writer excelling with words and becoming a great speaker, it ended with her grandmother’s death. When reading this, you can’t help but feel bad for the events she is describing. However, just before writing about her grandmother’s death, she comes to terms with her way of expressing herself. She states, “There were times when it was important for me to verbally communicate even if I couldn’t really express myself.” She was able to recognize what would ultimately help her, yet couldn’t accomplish it.