Language

Language is something that everyone has to learn to survive in this world. Language is used in our everyday lives. We use it to speak and communicate with others, write, and read. Language is different everywhere you go. In the south, people talk one way, but in the north, people talk another way, but both are speaking the same language. Anzaldua speaks Spanish as well as English. In her essay, she writes some sayings in Spanish, so it was hard to understand what she is saying unless the readers are able to read and understand her language. I think she did this to push people to try and learn another language. Knowing more than just one language is very useful and helpful. Language is a part of a persons identity and it's not just a skill. Sometimes using another language when told not to can get someone in trouble like at school like when Anzaldua was sent to the corner of the classroom for talking back to her teacher in Spanish even though she wasn't really saying anything wrong. Language is not just a skill because you really can not mess up a language, but if you say something wrong, it can be fixed. Language is a form of expression. People express themselves by the way they talk. People talk different depending on who they are talking. For example, the way we talk to our parents is not the same way we talk to our friends. Language is what we make it to be. People that speak a second language aside from English can sometimes be a "cultural traitor," according to Anzaldua because she was told "[she's] speaking the oppressor's language by speaking Englsh, [she's] ruining the Spanish language." She should not be called a traitor because she still speaks Spanish, but she is learning English because she needs to, to understand what is going on at her school and she really is not ruining the Spanish language.