Gloria Anzaldúa: How to Tame a Wild Tongue
Introduction to Gloria Anzaldua and "How to Tame a Wild Tongue"
Gloria Anzaldúa (1942-2004): Born in in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas.
Early Life & Work: At age eleven, she began working in the fields as a migrant worker and later on her family's land after her father's death. She worked her way through school, becoming a schoolteacher and later an academic.
Key Issues: Her work focused on feminist, lesbian, and Chicana issues, as well as autobiography.
Renowned Publications:
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (), which she co-edited with Cherríe Moraga.
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (), from which "How to Tame a Wild Tongue" is excerpted.
"How to Tame a Wild Tongue" Focus: Anzaldúa explores various types of borders: between nations, cultures, classes, genders, and languages. She argues that identity is profoundly intertwined with language, stating, "So, if you want to really hurt me, talk badly about my language" (par. ). Her act of keeping her linguistic borders "wild" is a powerful assertion of her identity, defying societal pressures to conform.
The Metaphor of the "Wild Tongue" and Linguistic Suppression
Opening Scenario: The essay begins with a dentist attempting to "control your tongue" while working on Anzaldúa's mouth, metaphorically representing external forces trying to subdue her linguistic identity. The dentist describes her tongue as unusually "strong or as stubborn."
Anzaldúa's Internal Reflection: She ponders the impossibility of taming such a tongue: "how do you tame a wild tongue, train it to be quiet, how do you bridle and saddle it? How do you make it lie down?"
Linguistic Violence: A quote from Ray Gwyn Smith is introduced: "Who is to say that robbing a people of its language is less violent than war?" This highlights the severe, often overlooked, impact of linguistic oppression.
Experiences of Linguistic Shame and Punishment
School Incidents:
Punished with three licks on the knuckles with a ruler for speaking Spanish during recess.
Sentenced to the corner for "talking back" to an Anglo teacher when she was merely trying to correct the pronunciation of her name.
Confronted with the ultimatum: "If you want to be American, speak 'American.' If you don't like it, go back to Mexico where you belong."
Family Pressure: Her mother, out of concern for her daughter's future, would express mortification and insist on speaking proper English: "Pa' hallar buen trabajo tienes que saber hablar el ingles bien. Que vale toda tu educación si todavía hablas ingles con un 'accent.'"
Academic Sanctions: At Pan American University, Anzaldúa and other Chicano students were mandated to take two speech classes, whose explicit purpose was "to get rid of our accents."
Violation of Rights: Anzaldúa views these attacks on one's form of expression, intended to censor, as a "violation of the First Amendment." She concludes, chillingly, that "Wild tongues can't be tamed, they can only be cut out," implying that eradication, not assimilation, is the ultimate goal of such pressures.
Overcoming the Tradition of Silence
Cultural Enforcement of Silence:
A prevalent Mexican saying she heard as a child, "En boca cerrada no entran moscas" ("Flies don't enter a closed mouth"), promoted reticence.
The term "ser habladora" (to be a talker) was associated with being a gossip and a liar, particularly if applied to women.
"Muchachitas bien criadas," or well-bred girls, were expected not to answer back.
Challenging parents (hablar pa' trás, repelar) was considered "una falta de respeto." Anzaldúa recalls confessing this as a sin to a priest.
Derogatory terms like "hocicona" (big mouth), "repelona" (questioning), and "chismosa" (carrying tales) were applied to women, marking them as "mal criada," a distinction she notes was never applied to men in her culture.
Masculine Discourse in Spanish: Anzaldúa recounts her shock upon hearing the feminine plural "nosotras" from Puerto Rican and Cuban women, realizing that Chicanas exclusively used the masculine plural "nosotros." This led her to conclude that Chicanas are "robbed of our female being by the masculine plural. Language is a male discourse."
Poetic Reflection on Lost Speech: A quote from Irena Klepfisz, "And our tongues have become dry / the wilderness has / dried out our tongues / and / we have forgotten speech," profoundly expresses the silencing effect of this cultural climate.
Internalized Policing: Even within their own community, other Spanish speakers (nos quieren poner candados en la boca) would try to restrict Chicano speech, using "reglas de academia" (academic rules) to enforce linguistic conformity.
The Nature of Chicano Spanish
External Condemnation: Anzaldúa recounts being accused by various Latinos and Latinas of being a "Pocho, cultural traitor" for speaking English and "ruining the Spanish language." Both purists and many Latinos consider Chicano Spanish "deficient" or a "mutilation of Spanish."
Anzaldúa's Argument for Legitimacy: She asserts that Chicano Spanish is a "border tongue" that evolved naturally. It is a "living language" characterized by "change, evolución, enriquecimiento de palabras nuevas por invención o adopción" (change, evolution, enrichment of new words by invention or adoption), forming "un nuevo lenguaje" (a new language) that aligns "a un modo de vivir" (with a way of life). She insists it is not incorrect.
A Language of Self-Identity: For a people who are neither fully Spanish nor fully Anglo, and who reside in a country dominated by English, creating their own language is a necessity. It is a language intrinsically tied to their identity, capable of expressing their unique realities and values using terms that are "neither español ni inglés, but both." She describes it as a "patois, a forked tongue, a variation of two languages" and a "secret language" for Chicanos to communicate among themselves.
Language as Homeland: For some, this unique language is "a homeland closer than the Southwest," especially for Chicanos now living in the Midwest and East.
The Spectrum of Chicano Languages and Dialects
Heterogeneous Linguistic Landscape: Due to their complex history and identity, Chicanos are a "complex, heterogeneous people" who speak many languages, especially after years of Spanish/Anglo colonization.
Eight Identified Languages/Dialects:
Standard English
Working class and slang English
Standard Spanish
Standard Mexican Spanish
North Mexican Spanish dialect
Chicano Spanish (with regional variations in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California)
Tex-Mex
Pachuco (also known as caló)
Anzaldúa's Personal Linguistic Profile:
Her "home" tongues are primarily the last five listed, with Chicano Spanish and Tex-Mex being closest to her heart.
She acquired Standard and working-class English from school, media, and work environments.
Standard Spanish and Standard Mexican Spanish were learned from her grandmother (Mamagrande Locha) and through Spanish and Mexican literature.
The North Mexican dialect was learned from recent Mexican immigrants (las recién llegadas) and braceros.
Chicano Texas Spanish was learned from her parents and other Chicanos in the Valley, and she uses it with her mother, younger brother, aunts, and older relatives.
She notes difficulty communicating with Chicanas from New Mexico or Arizona in Chicano Spanish, and usually speaks entirely in English with most California Chicanas, sometimes unintentionally embarrassing them if she speaks Spanish.
She finds true linguistic freedom primarily with another "Chicana tejana."
Anglicisms and Pachismas: These refer to Spanish words distorted by English influence. A pacha is an anglicized Mexican or American of Mexican origin who speaks Spanish with a North American accent and reconstructs the language under English influence.
Tex-Mex (Spanglish): This comes most naturally to Anzaldúa, involving spontaneous code-switching between English and Spanish within the same sentence or even word. She uses it with her sister, brother Nune, and Chicano Tejano contemporaries.
Pachuco (caló): This is described as a "language of rebellion," originating with zoot suiters, against both Standard Spanish and Standard English. It functioned as a "secret language" unintelligible to adults or outsiders, comprising slang words from both English and Spanish (e.g., ruca for girl/woman, valo for guy/dude, chale for no, simón for yes, churro for sure, periquiar for talk, pigionear for petting, que gacho for how nerdy, ponle águila for watch out, la pelona for death). Anzaldúa admits to losing most of her Pachuco fluency due to lack of practice.
Linguistic Characteristics of Chicano Spanish
Pronunciation and Grammar Variations:
Vowel Collapse: Two adjacent vowels often collapse into a single syllable (e.g., maiz becomes maiz, cohete becomes coete).
Stress Shift: Stress can shift in certain words.
Consonant Omission: Consonants between vowels are frequently omitted (e.g., lado becomes lao, mojado becomes mojao).
"f" to "j" Shift: Chicanos from South Texas often pronounce "f" as "j" (e.g., fue pronounced as jue).
Archaisms: Retention of older Spanish words and forms no longer standard (e.g., semos, truje, haiga, ansina, naiden).
Retention of "j": The archaic "j" (derived from an earlier "h," like French halar or German halon, which was lost in standard Spanish in the th century) is retained in words like jalar. This is attributed to the linguistic isolation of South Texas Chicanos, who were influenced by words brought by Spaniards from Medieval Spain (particularly Extremadura and Andalucía).
Andalucian Influence: Andalucians pronounce "ll" like a "y" and absorb "d"s into adjacent vowels (e.g., tirado becomes tirao). They contributed to the "lenguaje popular, dialectos y regionalismos" (popular language, dialects, and regionalisms).
"ll" to "y" / "z" to "s" Shifts: Chicanos and other Spanish speakers often shift "ll" to "y" and "z" to "s."
Omission of Syllables: Initial syllables are dropped (e.g., tar for estar, toy for estoy, hora for ahora), a feature also seen in Cubans and Puerto Ricans. Final syllables are also dropped (e.g., pa for para).
Intervocalic "y" / "ll" Replacement: The intervocalic "y" or "ll" (as in tortilla, ella, botella) is replaced by "ia" forms (e.g., tortia, ea, botea).
Syllable Addition: Additional syllables are added at the beginning of some words (e.g., atocar for tocar, agastar for gastar).
Verb Ending Substitution: Replacing verb endings (e.g., lavates replacing lavaste for lavaste las vasijas).
Anglicisms and Tex-Mex Argot:
Borrowed English Words: English words are incorporated directly (e.g., bola from ball, carpeta from carpet, meichina de lavar for washing machine instead of lavadora).
Tex-Mex Argot: This is created by adding a Spanish sound to the beginning or end of English words (e.g., cookiar for cook, watchar for watch, parkiar for park, rapiar for rape). This is seen as a direct result of the pressure on Spanish speakers to adapt to English.
Grammatical Differences:
Chicanos do not use vosotros/as or its corresponding verb forms.
They rarely use claro (to mean yes), imagínate, or me emociona, unless these forms were learned from Latinas, books, or in a classroom setting.
Anzaldúa notes similar linguistic evolutions occurring in other Spanish-speaking communities.
Linguistic Terrorism and Internalized Shame
Experience of "Deslenguadas": Chicanas are labeled "deslenguadas" (tongueless, or literally, without a tongue), described as "los del español deficiente" (those with deficient Spanish). They are seen as a "linguistic nightmare, your linguistic aberration, your linguistic mestisaje," and the subject of burla (mockery).
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