How To Tame A Wild Tongue Essay

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Diversity, Identity, Education, and America are all words that have multiple meanings and represent different things to everyone. To the author of “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” these meanings are similar yet also extremely dissimilar to my thoughts on them. My experiences with diversity have been limited, mostly because of the regions I have lived in. My identity up to now hasn’t been dictated by the thoughts of others, or at least I thought. As I get older and the politics of the world get increasingly prominent, I start to realize that my identity may be just as stereotyped as others.
First, Anzaldúa wrote “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” because the threat on her identity was brought to light much earlier for her than me, and also in a greatly unjust way. She overcame that threat at an early age as well, and wrote the essay also as a means of showing others that their identity does not have to be dictated by others’ perceptions just as hers was. What she was born into became her hardships in life, and they are nothing like the hardships I faced. Teachers taking away her language, her tongue, demented her education. Education for me started out as comfortable, but quickly became necessary, boring, and a burden. Others crave what I had, and …show more content…
“I felt a sense of homecoming as well as alienation,” (Pg. 41) this is a common theme in the essay, and is used to focus on how she doesn’t feel a belonging to one people or another. Her language, whichever one she uses at the time, defines her in that moment of speaking. To me, America was something I prided myself on. I would gladly stand and say the pledge in the mornings, even if no one else did, even when “America” and “being American” became mottled in the eyes of my generation. My father and many others fought for my country and I wanted to be proud. But, the ridicule slowly ruined my image of the American flag as well. So now, I feel I am an alien in my own home
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