The Power of Language

 Madison Blackburn

Geography 101

I thought that this week’s reading was interesting. The reading was by Gloria Anzaldua and was called, How to Tame a Wild Tongue. This told the story about Gloria Anzaldua's experience and struggles with language. She was Mexican but was living in America, but she still spoke Spanish often and sometimes she would speak English, but would have an accent. She was always punished for this and was told to go to Mexico or to never speak Spanish. She would get in trouble on the playground for speaking Spanish. This had to have been incredibly hard for her. That is like telling for most of us where English is our main language, and then all of the sudden we can only speak French. It would be very difficult to transition at first, and you are going to still try to speak English out of habit, but you shouldn’t be punished for it. This reading was a very good example of how some cultures have their expectations and don’t want any mixing of cultures. They aren’t able to adapt to change very well and don’t know how to act on it properly. It is terrible that as a country, people are treated so badly and can’t feel included just because they are also speaking a different language or the same language but have an accent.