Analysis Of How To Tame A Wild Tongue

Superior Essays
It is good to see that an increasing number of protests spread nationwide every year because people increasingly become aware of the necessity of speaking out. However, some people still keep silent when injustices happen. In “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, Gloria Anzaldua, a Chicana author, writes about the partial judgment on her accents when she speaks English, but she feels proud of her mother language, Chicano Spanish, because she realizes that her mother tongue is her distinctive identity. Also, she encourages her chicano friends to keep their identities. Likewise, in “To the Lady”, Mitsuye Yamada, a Japanese American poet and activist, writes to a lady in San Francisco and claims that the consequence of people not protesting when injustice …show more content…
In “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, Gloria Anzaldua was mistreated by her teacher and people because of her accent, and she was asked to speak perfect English. Anzaldua recalls, “I remember being sent to the corner of the classroom for ‘talking back’ to the Anglo teacher when all I was trying to do was tell her how to pronounce my name. ‘If you want to be American, speak ‘American.’ If you don’t like it, go back to Mexico where you belong” (1521). When Anzaldua tries to tell her teacher “how to pronounce” her name, she is trying to speaks for herself because she knows the importance of her name and her language; she knows that they represent her unique identity. Apparently, her word doesn’t have any influence on the teacher as a child. Instead, she is defined as a different person compared to other normal American students, and she is asked to speak Standard English by her teacher because of her “difference”. Her teacher actually tries to force her to abandon her ethnic identity, to melt in the conformity and to become an American. Fortunately, Anzaldua doesn’t give her consent to her teacher to speak like an American; moreover, she encourages her compatriots to keep their language so that they can retain their precious identity. Generally, if people in the whole world speak the same language, then distinct characteristics disappear. People should stand out bravely in order to …show more content…
After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which enabled military authorities to remove most Japanese and Japanese Americans from their home. In “UC to award honorary degrees to interned Japanese American students” from the Los Angeles Time, interned Japanese Americans, who were sent to federal internment camp when studied at UC, were awarded degrees after more than sixty years. Grace Obata Amemiy, one of these students, studied the pre-nurse program at UCB. She admits that “ ‘It was hard to accept but we did our best to do what we had to do. It was out of control of our hands. Yes, we had very hard times, but looking back positively, we had to go on with our lives’ ” (Gordon). The powerful government enforces a law that Japanese Americans had to move into the camp; nevertheless, there was no reason that any of these students could make the authorities feel dangerous. Still, Japanese American chose to obey and follow what the authorities asked them to do. As a result, they lost their degrees, their jobs, and their property. They point out that they struggle to move forward after the internment camp. Even though “it was out of control”, they never tried to stand out and fight back. After the internment camp, they should have chance to request for gaining back their degree, yet they stay in their status quo until the university

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    Teachers/nuns and the schooling system usually adjust for kids who can’t learn at the same pace. But the author sort of surprised me and threw me off a great deal by stating he resented the thought of having to use another language, because it wasn’t his own. Quoted in the earlier paragraphs, “But I couldn’t believe that the English language was mine to use. (In part, I did not want to believe it.)” The author felt as if the more he converged to the public language and society, the more things personal to him would change.…

    • 1176 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Mary Matsuda Gruenewald tells her tale of what life was like for her family when they were sent to internment camps in her memoir “Looking like the Enemy.” The book starts when Gruenewald is sixteen years old and her family just got news that Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japan. After the bombing Gruenewald and her family life changed, they were forced to leave their home and go to internment camps meant for Japanese Americans. During the time Gruenewald was in imprisonment she dealt with the struggle for survival both physical and mental. This affected Gruenewald great that she would say to herself “Am I Japanese?…

    • 185 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Essay One The japanese- American internment was when many japanese citizens of the united states were moved into camps do to Pearl Harbor and World War Two, but war time panic wasn’t the only reason they were relocated. Prejudice played a big role in the americans. It played a big role because the americans thought that the japanese were sealing their jobs, they didn’t fit in, and they were unlike them. The first reason why prejudice played a big role in the japanese-American Relocation was because they were taking jobs away from americans.…

    • 394 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Farewell To Manzanar Essay

    • 1344 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The sufferings caused by their horrible experiences mark them for life making them hostile towards society. That is why, the struggles of the Japanese people to get back society is an example of American assimilation. Furthermore, the author wants to reveal her life experiences during the war time, so future generations can learn about the history of this country in detail from a different perspective. One of the purpose of this book is to give readers the chance to feel in a way what the author experienced by her detail narration of her life through vivid descriptions. Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston states that, “For new generations of readers, this story is often their first exposure to the wartime internment and its human costs” (206).…

    • 1344 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    As a child with a Puerto Rican heritage, she grew up knowing Spanish as her first language. This, although not necessary a disadvantage, acted as one while she was growing up, and in her essay she expresses this feeling “…I express the sense of powerlessness I felt as a non-native speaker of English in the United States. Non-Native. Non-participant in the mainstream culture. Non, as in no, not, nothing” (Cofer 1).…

    • 1467 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    She argues that the accurately restoring a narrative of the past entails applying a compilation of resources in order to reconstruct the varied accounts and sentiments of the internment experience. Additionally, she interacts with her identity as a Japanese Canadian to gain more depth into her research. Throughout the article, she concludes the negative impacts of how the internment camps destroyed the Japanese community and discriminated against a racial minority in bad faith. Her article disputes the image of Japanese Canadian women as historically a meek, passive bystander of the internment. The letters reveal indignance as well as a sense of perseverance in the attitudes of Japanese Canadian women; the conclusion is supported by accounts of resistance and determination to endure the prejudice, maintenance of home after the loss of males in the household, and hardships in relocating away from the coast.…

    • 815 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Fred Korematsu, an American born citizen of Japanese descent, defied court orders by refusing to leave his home in San Leandro, California. Korematsu was arrested and his appeal made it to the United States Supreme Court. Fuelled by racial bias and anti-Japanese paranoia the court argued that some Japanese loyalty resided in their ancestral home and since it was impossible to tell who was loyal to the United States and who wasn’t all Japanese residing in the United States should be evicted to internment camps. Furthermore, the courts determined national security out weighted the constitutional right of its citizens. Korematsu’s defence argued that Korematsu did not commit a crime and that internment camps were “a euphemism for prison.”…

    • 826 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This essay answers the question if the internment of the Japanese Americans was justified. The internment was not a justified action because there were no German or Italian camps, the Japanese were not a threat, and interning every Japanese American. The first reason why Japanese American internment was not justified is…

    • 684 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Rhetorical analysis for “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” Have you ever been in a situation that people around you were speaking a language which you do not understand at all, and they diminished your home language when you tried to speak out? If not, at least someone did experienced the awkwardness and feel outrages of being put in such a situation. The article “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” is written by Gloria Anzaldua who was the sixth generation Tejana. She wrote this article to describe how living in United States as a Mexican was difficult and upset. She expressed her outrages toward people improper behavior to her home language.…

    • 1082 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Gloria Anzaldúa

    • 680 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In the essay “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” Gloria Anzaldúa talks about her experience struggling with her identity growing up as a Chicana living in the United States. Her experience also relates to many other Latinos living in the United States who struggled to find their place in society and a language to speak freely without feeling fear and embarrassment afterwards. She talks about how throughout her life the language she used was suppressed in various ways and forms as she was forced to assimilate to the dominant English language. Anzaldúa also discusses some examples of how the Spanish language changed and evolved in since the first Spanish colorizations began in the region. Overall, the main message she is sending is that she is who…

    • 680 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Although, of the three, none were treated as poorly as the Japanese Americans were treated. Of all the many minorities unrightfully treated in the 1950’s, interned Japanese Americans were treated the worst from the public’s view of them, how they they were treated in the camps and the aftermath of their internment. To be prosecuted for a reason unknown,…

    • 1225 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Due to the inability for people to separate the wrongdoings of others from one’s race disguised and justified as “military necessity,” Japanese Americans were severely affected in their every day lives for the rest of their lives by the retaliation of America and it is shown in how they were placed in internment camps, had inadequate healthcare, forced to run the camp and maintain facilities for minimal pay, poor education for the youth, the idea that Japanese Americans had to be instilled with “American rhetoric,” the feelings of not belonging, the post-traumatic stress the internees were left even years after being released, the act of compensation given to internees for living in the camps, and so much more. The act and its effect on those in the medical field alone was a major event. Many Nikkei were licensed practitioners, dentists, nurses, optometrists, pharmacists, and nurses were forced to abandon their careers as well as she down their offices in order to be placed and work in the camp. This resulted in them being paid less than $20 a month (which was at least more than…

    • 935 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The Effects Of The Chinese Exclusion Act

    • 1446 Words
    • 6 Pages
    • 8 Works Cited

    Specifically, the newly industrialized Japanese jumped at the chance. So instead of Chinese workers taking the jobs of iterant Californians, the Japanese were doing it instead. They came in such great numbers that the California legislature could not create an act quickly enough.[5] Because of this, quiet bitterness began to form in the place of public racism. While the Japanese and other eastern Asians were barred from entering the country in 1924, forty-two years of intense, bitter dislike for the Japanese did nothing but fan the flames of American Nativist policies. Denis Kearney stated that the Japanese and other East Asians, “Must Go.”…

    • 1446 Words
    • 6 Pages
    • 8 Works Cited
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    It is here that Anzaldua helps the reader realize that their should be no shame in who you truly are and no shame in expressing your voice and native tongue. She also emphasizes on the fact that for chicanos their is no specific correct language because there is also not an ideal Chicano experience. Anzaldua’s message is that everyone is different and that is the beauty behind racial divergency. In an article published in the Huffington post, a high school student shares her story of how she overcame living in depression because of racism, she states, “I’ve realized that sometimes you are tempted to think that everyone is perfect except for you, but in reality, no one is, no matter how much we want them to be... I stopped pretending to be happy, and when I stopped pretending, I actually became happier.”…

    • 1968 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The United States has rapidly conformed into a multiracial society. Bilingual individuals come to America in hopes to find equal rights and freedom and face discrimination by Americans. American values are forced upon these people and according to Tan and Anzaldua, a certain way of life is expected of them. The struggle of “fitting in” and accepting the cultural background is a major point in both essays, Mother Tongue by Amy Tan and How to Tame a Wild Tongue by Gloria Anzaldua. Their experiences with the discrimination in the United States have given them they reason to stand against social inequality.…

    • 840 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays