Introduction: You Asked For It...My Opinon!

Have you ever heard that a female’s brain turns to mush after the birth of a baby? I never believed it until now. I can tell you that I have never been short on words. One of my many downfalls is my inability to hold back and reign in exactly how and what I feel about pretty much any subject. You can probably imagine my surprise when I sat down to write my first paper this quarter and my mind went completely blank! I still had opinions and feelings about the subject matter, but I could not figure out how to translate them into a cohesive and fluid writing. Part of the surprise came from the fact that I highly enjoyed our class discussion boards and had no problem not only studying each subject matter, but was also able to break down the makeup of the subject and relate each of the individual pieces into the whole. After careful consideration, I chose to include my response to discussion board number two in the Identity Unit, entitled “I Speak, Therefore I Am...?”

In this discussion board we were to read “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” by Gloria Anzaldua on page 77 of the Remix book, and then to respond by digging into the text and analyzing the relationship between our linguistic choices and our identity. Anzaldua’s essay fired me up. In a matter of five-and-a-half pages I found myself running through a gamut of emotions ranging from anger, frustration, and sorrow, which spurred me on to dig into my own linguistic history and uncover my feelings about how the language I speak contributes to my personal identity. An example of my critical thinking is shown in the following passage from my personal post to this discussion board which I named “The Evolution of Language and Identity.”

“When I think about the relationship between my own identity and my own language, I first think of my history. I mainly think of the history of my ancestors and my country. I did not get to choose where I was born, or what language I would speak as a child, but they do contribute to the person I am today. I am proud to be an American, proud of the ancestors that came before me, proud of the values and realities that make me American, and also proud to speak my own variation of American English. I completely understand Anzaldua when she says, "Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity-I am my language." Just like me, Anzaldua's Ethnicity has a history, a past. She is Mexican and American, and that mix gives her a unique history different from my own. Each of these facts is not chosen by her, but both contribute to her personal identity. She was in a sense, forced to speak Spanglish, in an effort to communicate effectively with those around her. Some of those people being Mexican, some being American, and all criticizing her for speaking the “other” language. I am convinced that Anzaldua's statement, "Until I am free to write bilingual and to switch codes without having always to translate, while I still have to speak English or Spanish when I would rather speak Spanglish, and as long as I have to accommodate the English speakers rather than having them accommodate me, my tongue will be illegitimate," comes from her frustrations of being forced to choose one country and one language, over the other, and in essence, being forced to deny part of her identity, making her to continually feel illegitimate.”

I love history, and I tend to relate every situation to myself…to make it personal and meaningful to me in the big scope of life. Perhaps that is why this discussion board post means so much to me. Without my American History I would not, and could not have the identity I have. My ability to personalize this post created an opportunity for me to uncover why and how the language we speak influences our personal identity.