Voice to the Audience

“Who is to say that robbing a people of its language is less violent than war?” After reading that I began to think about my own personal connection to English and realized that I felt no connection to it what so ever. Language to me is simply a tool used to translate thoughts and ideas into something communicable. I find that Anzaldua’s emotions are situational due to the fact that her language teachers were racist bigots. In a perfect world would you really mind losing your native tongue if it meant giving the entire world a common language? Should it not be the meaning behind the language that defines us and not the words themselves? In the end I feel sympathetic towards anyone growing up around people that don’t respect diversity and I choose to ignore their opinions in order to protect the concept of a universal language.

When I was a young-in I spent my days running through the woods, constructing dome forts and tunnels in large sticker bush groves. When summer came along the dome shaped rooms would dangle with hundred of black berries and we would feast till the sun disappeared behind the mountain tops. All those blackberries and endless hours of uninhibited thought left me believing that grammar was a pointless pain in my behind. Reading Anzaldua’s story made me realize that what language represented to her was what English grammar represented for me. My inability to spell is what gave my writing spunk and I did not wish to part with it. Instead of allowing Anzaldua to learn English while providing support to her native tongues they simply attempted to replace them with English. By respecting the diversity of her languages she may have been more receptive to their teaching. Learning how to speak with accent and without is possible and has been proven so by many actors and actresses of our generation.

            Talking and moving about while the dentist is working on your mouth is a horrible idea but does the dentist not have procedures in place to prevent such a situation? When Anzaldua’s dentist stated that he was going to need to do something about her tongue I was in complete agreement with him. Sitting back I tried to imagine a device that could be clamped to the inside of the bottom molars to keep the tongue away from the teeth and realized it already exists. The dentist should have been using a dental damn, the elastic green thing that brings any dental patient pure joy. The damn would not only restrain her tongue but keep those bits of metal from going into her mouth. Anzaldua may want to get referred to a dentist that understands his practice better and complains a little less.