Meditation of Lagunitas?

    I think that the success of language to effectively communicate varies. For instance, in the poem, “Meditation at Lagunitas”, Hass discusses the relationship between language, reality, and truth. He states how “new thinking is about loss” and how “it resembles all the old thinking” (ln. 1-2). The way I interpret what I understand from this will definitely differ from others, but this is my understanding of it— modern day life is a “reflection” of the past. This means that the more we think about “loss”, the more it resembles the “past” because it is something we are coming back to over and over again like learning history. For instance, social inequality still exists in our country. We still live in a country where the color of our skin defines our rights. This is a reflection of the past; it may not be accurately represented but it is still happening. In this situation, language would not be very effective if we were trying to make society progress.

     However, Anzaldua’s way to communicate was effective for me because it was written in Spanish and English. I was able to understand how Spanish is important to her because she saw her language as an identification of who she is. I may not identify myself the same way as she does but I do understand where she is coming from. We live in a world where English is the dominant language so being able to be fluent in English would have obviously been necessary but being able to read an article that is different from the ordinary articles was something different. For instance, McWhorter believes that if languages were to die off we’d be more united as a country but there would not be any diversity. McWhorter effectively sends out his message through his English but personally, it was not a success for me because it is basic for me to read an article in nothing but English.