Review of the Book 'How to Tame a Wild Tongue'
Sometimes it feels like some days are the same based on those who surround us or certain comments that we hear, and it could throw us back to that same likely day. Several scenarios and specific attitudes are brought upon in “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” by Gloria Anzaldua as she has flashbacks during her visit to the dentist to take her braces off.
While the dentist was having trouble trying to control her tongue the angry tone and comments of the dentist brought her readers to the conversation of the Chicano-Spanish language and culture. The author starts filling her head with thoughts on how to control a stubborn muscle such as her tongue as she thinks “how do you tame a wild tongue, train it to be quiet... how do you make it lie down?”. Her own thoughts took her back to her experience of how she was controlled and limited to use her language. Referring her tongue as her native language which she was punished for speaking it. She got older and decided to stand up for her language as well as herself. Anzaldua has a prideful yet a sense of disappointment towards her culture and native language. Her attitude seems to change after discovering that Chicano-Spanish and her culture is male dominated; meanwhile her people kept approving of it never changing the outlooks. She later recovers her pride for her language when she states that her language is a part of her identity. She is willing to inform and educate generations about her language and how it should give people confidence and not be ashamed of speaking their language.
Generally, America tends to be close minded regarding the freedom to express different languages and cultures. Hispanic/Latino culture are not the only culture that has been shut down throughout the past to modern day. I have personally seen African, Indian, and Islamic people be shamed by others for their appearances, languages, and culture. We live in a society where one must act and look a certain way to be accepted. I have had my own experiences of punishments in school for speaking Spanish or for playing Mexican music. In my case the reason to be disciplined were that my classmates did not understand Spanish, so they assumed that my language was used as a secret weapon to talk badly about others. I never understood why some of my classmates and I were disciplined for speaking our first language that we used to communicate with each other till middle school. I think that American attitudes could improve towards people of different cultures by being open minded and educate themselves of these cultures.
The larger issue of Anzaldua’s essay is how society fails to recognize and educate themselves of different cultures. She wants us to learn that our cultures and languages stay alive if we keep using them. A lesson that we should take from this essay is that we need to speak for ourselves and not let others place us under negative judgements.
