Jesse Ernst
2/16/21
GEOG 101
Evolving Languages
Anzaldua in “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” explains how she feels her language, the Spanish language, has changed and evolved into a language with many accents, dialects, and even become new languages. Chicano Spanish is one of these. This language is a “border tongue which developed naturally” (p. 37). It started out of a need to “identify ourselves as a distinct people” (p. 37). Anzaldua explained that “Chicanos, after 250 years of Spanish/Anglo colonization, have developed significant differences in the Spanish we speak” (p. 39). “Other Spanish-speaking groups are going through the same, or similar, development in their Spanish” (p. 39) as more people migrate away from their place of origin.
America has done injustice to many, forcing people who speak a different language than English to conform or be punished. Anzaldua remembered being caught speaking Spanish at recess; she was punished on the knuckles with a ruler. Spanish speakers were not the only people group whose language was targeted by language enforcers. In Alaska many elders as children were punished in all different ways for speaking their native languages. Spanish speakers were told regularly, “ If you want to be American speak ‘American’. If you don’t like it, go back to Mexico where you belong” (p.36). Just this last week I heard someone make a comment similar to this referring to native Alaskan languages. The idea of only speaking English seems strange to me since many people in the United States can trace their ancestry to other language groups.
Anzaldua thought Chicanos who grew up speaking Chicano Spanish were internalizing a belief that they spoke poor Spanish even an illegitimate “bastard language” (p. 40). People around her felt uncomfortable talking in Spanish to Latinas, afraid of being judged by the way they spoke Spanish. When La Raza Unida party formed in Texas, the Chicanos were legitimized as a people group. Although “the struggle of identities continues” (p. 40), Chicanos find themselves persevering and unbreakable.
I didn't realize there were so many Spanish-evolved languages before reading this. I like how you addressed their discomfort in speaking Spanish to Latino's for fear of being judged. It definitely shows the stress of language on their culture, and their feelings of not fitting in.
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