Critical Summary

In her essay “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, Gloria Anzaldua, a former professor and a feminist, argues that language is tied deeply to our identity. “ Chicanos’ need to identify ourselves as a distinct people. We needed a language with which we could communicate with ourselves, a secret language”, her Chicano culture is in deep connection with their language. She supports this claim first by starting with an example of how her language is not accepted as who she is, she lives in America therefore is expected to speak American, but when surrounded by people of her native language she speaks chicano. Then she progresses into the details of how her language progressed and was formed. Through this formation, she connects the language to her identity and how she relates directly to the language. Towards the end of her essay she begins to connect herself to her language and challenges American acceptance of English as the only language appropriate in the United States. Her purpose is to draw attention to the inequality of language acceptance, and to show how it can begin to prevent someone from finding an identity. The intended audience is those who are lost in their identity, due to the fact that they live in a country which has multiple backgrounds yet only one language is accepted. In a controversial yet confident tone, in which she addresses the oppressors of her language. This is significant because it establishes how language can connect to one’s identity, even in a society that only accepts one language.
One of her key flash points is within the conclusion of her essay. She describes her acceptance of her identity as chicano, no matter how dominant the mainstream society is over her language. She will remain steadfast with her identity as chicano no matter how many times she we will be oppressed by mainstream white society. This is in connection with the keyword of chicano, which is the source of her identity. This helps challenge people’s perceptions of what...