Anzaldua Gloria Anzaldua Has a Wild Tongue,

Anzaldua

Gloria Anzaldua has a wild tongue, a tongue that roams free from the confines of both formal English and formal Spanish. Anzaldua's wild tongue, which she describes in Borderlands: La Frontera in the chapter "How to Tame a Wild Tongue," is Chicano Spanish, a "border tongue which developed naturally" by immigrants from Mexico living in the United States. As Anzaldua notes, "wild tongues can't be tamed, they can only be cut out," (76). Yet to cut out Chicano Spanish would mean obliterating an entire culture and way of life. Chicano Spanish is essential to Chicano culture and Chicano Spanish is also essential to Anzaldua's identity. "Identity is the essential core of who we are as individuals, the conscious experience of the sale inside" (84). Gloria Anzaldua perceives language as an indicator for identity, culture, and gender differentiation and her essay effectively conveys how language is an essential component in adapting to a dominant culture.

Anzaldua touches on the nature of one's identity not as a function of nationality but as function of race or ethnicity: "by mexicanos we do not mean citizens of Mexico; we do not mean a national identity but a racial one" (84). Distinguishing nationality from ethnicity is one of the hallmarks of Anzaldua's argument. Showing how Chicano Spanish is more a product of culture than of nationality is one of the reasons why her essay is effective in conveying the importance of language. Language is an important part of racial and ethnic identity and like food and music, language is a major marker of cultural identity. In Europe, where many different nations sit close together, languages help to show a person's place of origin. Because of the European Union, borders are almost nonexistent in Europe, so when people travel, the only way they can perceive cultural identity is through language. Anzaldua describes a similar experience: when she travels regionally throughout the American Southwest and throughout Mexico, she adapts her tongue. "With Mexicans I'll try to speak either Standard Mexican Spanish or the North Mexican dialect ... With Chicanas from Nuevo Mexico or Arizona I will speak Chicano Spanish a little, but often they don't understand ... " (78). Anzaldua's Chicano Spanish, her wild tongue, marks her place of origin and is thus a key indicator of her culture and her personal identity.

Learning new languages is the primary way that individuals adapt to new cultures. Using English as a common tongue is something that many people have to deal with, especially immigrants to the United States. Anzaldua claims that adapting to a dominant tongue is "the result of the pressures on Spanish people to adapt to English" (79). Because English is the first language of most citizens of the United States and because it is the official language of the country, it is important that immigrants learn English to get by and thrive in the dominant culture. English has become a "neutral language" for people whose first language is something other than English (80). As Anzaldua shows, however, immigrants must also retain their native languages by speaking them with friends and family. Otherwise, we run the risk of obliterating our entire culture. We should not be too general when referring to our backgrounds, either. To simply refer to ourselves as "Spanish" is, as Anzaldua states, "copping out" (84).

Language is one of the ways that subcultures such as Chicano culture create internal cohesion. For example, Anzaldua notes that Chicano Spanish is a "living language" because it is constantly changing (77). Languages are sometimes thought of as static and unchanging but languages do significantly change over time because of patterns of migration and the formation of sub-cultures like Chicanos in America. Living languages are exciting, fascinating expressions of cultural identity especially when a small group of people has to maintain their identity in spite of living within a dominant culture. People who speak "languages of rebellion" like Tex-Mex are powerful people because they are multilingual. They have broken down the barriers between languages by being able to interchange words and create new phrases. They are not restricted to using only formal English or formal Spanish to get their points across. Anzaldua believes that multilingual people should purposely and actively create "new" languages as bold assertions of who they are.

Language is also a meaningful part of personal identity. Anzaldua states, "there is not one Chicano language just as there is no one Chicano experience" (80). Individual differences in both language and identity show how the two are intimately linked. One's gender also impacts language and vice-versa. For example, in Spanish and other Romance languages in which nouns are assigned a gender, some derogatory terms refer to females but not males. "Language is a male discourse," according to Anzaldua. This causes women and men to think and feel certain ways about their gender and personal identities.