I wanted to elaborate about what I sort of said in class about the way Gloria Anzaldua's "How to Tame a Wild Tongue" affected me. I've always recognized that I spoke a Spanish other than Standard Spanish. It is the Spanish that I speak with my family. Nobody in my family speaks Standard Spanish, whether Castilian or Mexican. But it is normal, widespread conversational Mexican Spanish. It is not standard because it is not the Spanish spoken in the media or official communication. But most people in Mexico don't speak that way, unless they are educated/upper class. Unfortunately, I always labeled it as "improper" because I didn't know how else to label it. As Anzaldua says, "Chicanas who grew up speaking Chicano Spanish have internalized the belief that we speak poor Spanish. It is illegitimate, a bastard language" (58). I don't think my Spanish is "Chicano Spanish," but that's a whole other story.
And I also knew that I spoke something called "Spanglish." But I only speak Spanglish with a few people, because there are only certain people that I know will respond to it. I have to know that they'll respond to it and use it in the same way that I use it. However, the people with whom I use Spanglish and I always use the term jokingly. We didn't recognize the language as legitimate. But after reading Anzaldua, I realize that the many forms and variations of Spanish AND English that I speak are legitimate. Each language is linked to a certain piece of identity, and that makes it the primary language of that group. For that reason, they are legitimate. I realize that "[e]thnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity- I am my language Until I can take pride in my language, I cannot take pride in myself" (59). I agree with this statement, I am my languages because my languages are one of the main ways with which I communicate and present myself to the world. And I should take pride in my languages. I wouldn't want to speak only Standard Spanish and forget the Spanish that I acuired growing up because that would make communication with my loved ones difficult, maybe even causing alienation (like what happened to Richard Rodriguez).
Thinking about this, I realized that there is a problem about the ways I reached my conclusion. Why is it that my use of language was only legitimized in my eyes after I saw it legitimized in a written document (an academic writing, to be specific)? Why didn't I ever think that my experiences legitimized it? Why so much deferrence to written language?
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I think your final question is something that many people who've grown up speaking "non-Standard" languages/dialects ask themselves. I speak a few... dialects???... of English - Southern, urban, black - but I've never quite thought of them as illegitimate. More I thought of using them as code-switching. And maybe because all these dialects are based in English is why I don't question their legitimacy. I just think that some are more appropriate for certain spaces than others.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, I know y'all is not appropriate in academic discourse and would likely not choose to use it there. However, amongst my college friends - all graduates, all professional - it's common. However, not only would y'all not be appropriate in academe, it would also not be appropriate in most urban settings. A large portion of my family lives in Baltimore and if were to say y'all in their presence, massive giggles would erupt. (I however, never laugh at them when they say muhva, fahva or doug (for mother, father or dog) - but that's another story!
I think what's important is not whether or not a way of communicating is legitimate. I think what's important is knowing when to speak what with whom.
Similar to your experience, I too saw that the way I speak Spanish was legitimized only after I read it on an academic paper. I feel that this happens because ever since we were young what we learned in school was always right and what we learned on the “streets” or at “home” could be questioned. For instance, if a student in elementary class was learning world history and he questions the fact that Christopher Columbus was the first to discover the Americas; I feel teachers would see that response as being wrong or maybe even disobedient. What I’m trying to say is that maybe I felt that Chicano language is a legitimate language because at such a young age we are programmed to believe that what we are exposed to in school is the be-all end-all and everything else can be modified. I think that it is only until we are in college that we are allowed to and sometimes required to question the information we are presented.
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