Gloria E. Anzaldua, in “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” uses language and the way it is used to forge and assert identity as a way to discuss the racial tensions that come from the strict binaries expected by society. While this extends chiefly to issues of white/non-white, particularly through the regulation hegemonic American society places on the languages spoken within it, there are issues of rich/poor, male/female, and others that are defined and asserted through language. In this respect, Anzaldua argues that ‘linguistic terrorism’ is often used by those in power to limit the speech and power of marginalized groups in order to keep them submissive and unable to protest.
In addition to the specific binaries of ethnicity (American/not-American) established by language, Anzaldua points out other binaries she must contend with. One significant one is the divide between man and woman, with male-dominated societies doing whatever they can to silence female voices, which she notices most acutely in recognizing she has never heard the feminine plural of nosotros, nosotras. The establishment of her own specific dialect, Chicano Spanish, left that out, supporting her point that “language is a male discourse” (Anzaldua 54). Maleness is equated to strength, and femaleness indicates weakness, according to these dominant language shifts: women like Anzaldua, however, refuse to let their femaleness define them as weak.
One of the most important attributes of Anzaldua’s discussion of cultural binaries is the mechanism by which these binaries are asserted: linguistic terrorism. Just as language defines a people, it can also separate them between those who speak their language (like them) an those who don’t (not like them). This is particularly true in Chicano Spanish, an intriguing mixture of English and Spanish specifically cultivated by Chicanos and Chicanas to give themselves a unique identity separate from either Americans or Mexicans. Mexicans resent Chicanos for not fully speaking Spanish, calling them “Deslenguadas. Somos los del español deficient,” essentially asserting they are deficient for speaking the way they do (Anzaldua 58). This establishes a strong binary between traditional Spanish speakers and Chicanos, who are shunned as not fully immersing themselves in the language Spanish speakers feel they should commit to. Instead, they claim that Chicanos simply are not well versed enough in their own language to be legitimate.
Anzaldua’s response to that particular binary is resentment and resistance, as she explores Chicanos’ status as an aberration that the rest of her people would prefer not exist. They are treated as a “nightmare aberration mestizaje,” those who are “culturally crucified” because they “speak with tongues of fire” (Anzaldua 58). Anzaldua feels pride in her fierce language and the strength of her people’s voice, which exists outside of the strict binaries that beset them from both traditional Spanish and English speakers. While she feels pride in her people, Anzaldua also feels that the divide she exists in is bad, and that Latino culture as a whole should be able to accept Chicanos into their culture. In the meantime, they will continue to speak their “orphan tongue” in order to keep their specific identity.
In “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” Anzaldua uses the resistance to Chicano Spanish on both sides of the language barrier to demonstrate the many binaries she has to deal with as a Chicana. Despite being a woman of Latin descent who nonetheless speaks a language that mixes English and Spanish, she is well aware of the binaries she exists between. She is a woman, but she is strong; she speaks in Chicano Spanish, but feels fully independent and a part of Latino culture; she has experienced injustice, but wishes to see justice done for her people, and so forth. In many ways, her exploration of the prejudices against Chicano Spanish as a language become indicative of the racism and oppression her people face on a regular basis: by attempting to control her ‘wild tongue,’ the forces in power – be they male or traditionally Spanish or Anglos – wish to erase her identity. By keeping her ‘tongue of fire,’ Anzaldue defies all of them and the binary systems that judge her.
Works Cited
Anzaldua, Gloria. Borderlands: La Frontera. 2nd ed. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1999.
Print.
