How to Tame a Wild Tongue" Dual Entry Notes

HOW the language works (not what the language says)

Short Passage #1
“For a people who​ are neither Spanish nor live in a country in which Spanish is the first
language; ​for a people who​ live in a country in which English is the reigning tongue but who are
not ​Anglo​; ​for a people who ​cannot entirely identify with either standard (formal, Castilian)
Spanish​ nor standard ​English​, w ​ hat recourse is left to them but to create their own language?​ A
language which they can connect their ​identity​ to, one capable of communicating the realities
and values true to themselves - a language with terms that are neither ​espanol or ingles, but
both.​ We speak a ​patois​, a ​forked tongue, a variation of two languages​”

Analysis
Anazulda speaks in parallel structure in order to cohesively tie the origins of her
language and the country- Chicano and Mexican, “a people”, a special community of those who
in her terms speak “neither esponal or ingles, but both”. She continually comments on the
realities of power in a linguistic divide. The explanation for her language as a muddled, hybrid is
emphasized due to her Rhetorical Question. This bold proclamation stands against the
discriminative force opposing her “identity” meaning cultural importance, familiar, ethnicity, and
community. She demonstrates the division of her identity with imagery of a snake’s “forked
tongue” in which she symbolizes the interconnection to English and Spanish while seen as a
completely different language, “patois”. In total, she explains the struggles of growing up
bilingual in America and from a different ethnic background different from the majority of the
American society.

Short Passage #2
“En boca cerrada no entran moscas. ‘Flies don't enter a closed mouth’​ is a saying I kept hearing
when I was a child. ​Ser tabladora ​was ​to be a gossip and a liar, to talk too much. Muchachitas
bien criadas, well-bred girls don't answer back​. ​Es una alta de respeto to talk back to one's
mother or father.​ I remember one of the sins I'd recite to the priest in the confession box the few
times I went to confession:​ talking back to my mother, hablar patras, repelar. Hocicona,
repelona, chismosa, having a big mouth, questioning, carrying tales are all signs of being mal
criada.​ In my culture they are all words that are ​derogatory if applied to women - I've never
heard them applied to men”

Analysis
Throughout this passage, Anazulda clearly speaks in her native language of both
English and Spanish- translating for the non-dominant Chicano/Spanish speakers. In this
stylistic way, when she doesn’t translate, she informs that English is seen as the middle ground
where non-native to native speakers must speak in English, the dominant language, rather than
her words. This aids her choice of including an anecdote of her childhood, about her behavior.
Anazulda was seen as “a gossip and a liar”, one who “talk[ed] too much” because in her culture,
pure Spanish (or English) was the only acceptable language. Unlike a growing equality in
America, her language still holds onto the “derogatory” power “applied to women” never men.
This sentence brings light to the gender discrimination in her language. Although she focuses
on putting the audience into her native language of daily life, she in turn displays that her
language is deeply connected to her identity even though she is bilingual, some languages will
be closer to herself, childhood, and heart.