Anzaldua Gloria quotes Ray Gwyn Smith who said, “Who is to
say that robbing a people of its language is less violent than war?” Gloria
then goes on to expand on that quote by talking about teachers who robbed her
of her language all in the name of being “American.”; teachers would reprimand
her by giving, “three licks on the knuckles with a sharp ruler,” just for
speaking Spanish at recess. Even her own mother would say, “I want you to speak
English. Pa’ hallar buen trabajo tienes que saber hablar el ingles bien. Que
vale toda tu educacion si todavia hablas ingles con un ‘accent’.” Translation: I want you to speak English. To
find good work you have to learn to speak English well. That is true even if
your entire education is spoken with an accent.” In other words, what her mother
truly said to her was, “Your culture means nothing here. For the sake of your
wellbeing, forget your culture and become whatever they want you to be in order
to succeed.” But, I agree with Gloria—if not for your language, what is your
culture? Your language defines who you are as a native of your country. If you
are robbed of that, what are you? Gloria said, “…for a people who cannot
entirely identify with either standard Spanish nor standard English, what recourse
is left to them but to create their own language?” Taking someone’s language to
modify them is, in my opinion, more violent than war—it is an act of isolating
them from everything that is familiar and forcing them to start over as someone
new alone. Which, I believe Gloria would agree as well, is cruel.
I completely agree. Many people will emphasize that speaking English is important to the American culture, meanwhile not allowing people to speak languages associated with their culture or making fun of their accents when they do speak English. I think our society needs to recognize people can be parts of many cultures. Gloria illustrates this when listing the many languages she speaks (“1. Standard English 2. Working Class and Slang English 3. Standard Spanish… etc.) Gloria speaks these languages because she is part of all those cultures. She’s American (I emphasize: American is a nationality not a race) Tejana, Chicana, and she associate the languages she speaks with those cultures. Her teachers as a child were under the impression that because she was Chicana that she was somehow not “American” and thought bettering her English, getting rid of her accent, and not allowing her to speak Spanish would make her American. Culture erasure is an abuse faced by many minorities in America, and is caused by ignorance. People say that discrimination is “America’s curse” and they are not exactly wrong. As a society we need to embrace that our American culture is based in the idea that we are composed of many cultures, like Gloria, and we should not take that as a threat to American Culture.
ReplyDeleteIts a real shame that's the reality of our country but its true. For a country that claims to be "the melting pot" it is very unfair to other cultures. We are taught just how great America is and everything that America has done but we scarcely learn in detail about other cultures. I believe that is part of the problem but not all of it. Compared to the rest of the world we have it pretty easy we have the safest borders, the most money there are a lot of perks to being American. So many that people will drop everything just for a chance at a better life and not only do we rebuke them for coming here and "taking our jobs" as some people would put it but we get angry at them for not speaking our language properly. Instead if we just were more understanding and showed these cultures compassion and respect this country would change for the better.
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