Ever since I was a young girl, I was taught all sorts of things. We learn as we grow up many different pieces. The biggest one is the way we talk. Language is a huge phenomenon because language itself is what we are taught is right and wrong to say. When it comes to what it means to be, language is the criteria. When I think about the meaning of when we talk about what it means to be, I think about how we are taught before we come out of the womb, what language is. We are taught what the right word to say is, and what we are not supposed to say. There is not a substitution because there are to be no questions asked, it is what it is.
As I think about the saying, “it is what it is”; it means there is no other way. Society forms this notion on what we are allotted to say. I live in California, and when I think about how I was raised, I remember growing up, my dad telling me to make sure that I knew English and that Spanish did not really matter. He always told me to make sure that I checked the “White” box when they asked for my ethnicity. I always felt proud for being Hispanic (Mexican and Russian and American), but he did not seem to have that same mindset. I wondered why. I noticed that if I spoke Spanish in some places, it was rude, yet I still did not understand why.
I never understood why he felt that way until I begin to take different courses in college. I began to notice the difference in how society plays a major role on every aspect of our lives. We are policed by gender, race, and even by the very language that we speak. According to Gloria Anzaldua, in the reading, How to Tame a Wild Tongue, she says,
“When I first moved to San Francisco, I’d rattle off something in Spanish, unintentionally embarrassing them”
When I read that quote, I began to notice that even with people that speak Spanish; she was not able to communicate with them. I felt outraged, and I began to feel frustrated because if she naturally spoke this way, why would she have to speak English. Why should anyone feel embarrassed about speaking their own language? Even though my dad’s native language is Spanish, this quote made me think about how my dad only taught me English instead of Spanish when I grew up.
By the time I was a young teen, I began to learn Spanish. Every day I went to work, the ladies at work would speak to me in Spanish, and I felt a sense of empowerment when I would learn a new word each day. It was an amazing feeling because not only did I begin to learn my own ethnicity, but when I would go to my dad’s house, I was able to understand some phrases that my family spoke. My dad only used Spanish with family and if he needed to translate at work, but I could only say a few phrases because he deprived me of my language and that part of my ethnicity. I guess he thought it would be better for me.
When I was reading the reading, how to tame a Wild tongue, I began to notice that Gloria Anzaldua did not feel welcomed either way and then questions began to rise. Did my dad feel like she did? Did he see the only way to live here was to tame his tongue? I began to have a better understanding of why my dad did what he did by taming my tongue. In Anzaldua’s reading, she says,
“Because we speak with tongues of fire we are culturally crucified”
This was such a powerful quote because it made me think about when she talked about linguistic terrorism and how that related back to linguistic policing. Maybe my dad did not want me to have to deal with the different racism that is around me because of my ethnicity. He just wanted me to able to grow up like the norm or the way society expects me to act. I think that taming my tongue, although was with only the best intentions, in return only suppressed my identity, and I wish that I was taught both languages growing up because now when I go to my dad’s house, I feel like the outsider. I do not fit in. I am the odd one out. I do not really understand Gloria Anzaldua’s point of view, since i mostly speak English. I will leave you with a YouTube video to better understand linguistic Terrorism and how relates to taming a wild tongue.
