responses – Page 3 – E367: Writing and Diversity

Your Dreams Do Not Have to Come at the Expense of My Dreams

President Barack Obama, in his speech to the people of America titled “A More Perfect Union”, tackles the issue of racial/ethnic divides in America and how we tend to lose sight of what this country is and what it could become from the constant influx of negative and narrow-minded comments said by people all over the country.

Obama highlights the fact that the American people, even though they “may have different stories,” hold on to “common hopes” and that though “we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, we all want to move in the same direction”. I definitely believe that Americans tend to lose sight of what this country is – a conglomeration of different races, ethnicities, genders, sexualities, religions, classes, etc etc. We are constantly battling it out on social media and out in the streets fighting between massive groups… even though in the end, don’t we all want the same thing? Unity? Love? Cooperation? Trust? Compassion? Hope? A better future?

Probably my favorite quote from Obama’s speech was:

“…we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems… problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian but rather problems that confront us all.”

I was glad that Obama made constant references not only to black and white people in America, but also to Hispanics and Asians and immigrants who are just as much of the foundation of America as anyone else. By incorporating all of these identities into his speech, Obama makes sure that he is addressing and discussing a union in its entirety, not just a fragment of a union such as just white people or just black people.

Obama also notes that in order to better our country and to better this “union”, we all have our own specific instructions that come with who we are. For black people in America, Obama points out that they must “embrace the burdens of [their] past without becoming victims of [their] past”, and for white people, they must understand that what ails the African American community experience do not solely exist in their heads. Racial injustices happened in our past, they’re happening today, and without doing anything about it or denying them all together, they shall presume.

Another point Obama emphasizes that I especially loved was when he said:

“Your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams.”

This beautifully ties the piece together by emphasizing that the various plights of people in America should not be compared for the sole purpose of guilt, victim blaming, hostility, or anything negative of the sort. The people of America, all of them, need to come together in order to form a more perfect union, and realize that they all have the same objective and that nobody will be left behind in obtaining that objective in the end.

Learn Your Place

When watching debates, I tend to keep an open mind and hear out both arguments before agreeing with one point of view. However in this debate, I was able to decide pretty early on which case was most compelling. I felt that within minutes of his speech, Baldwin was able to convey that the truth behind this topic is only visible to those who have experienced it, and those that allow themselves to be aware of it.

“Is the question hideously loaded, and then one’s response to that question – one’s reaction to that question – has to depend on effect and, in effect, where you find yourself in the world, what your sense of reality is, what your system of reality is. That is, it depends on assumptions which we hold so deeply so as to be scarcely aware of them.”

Whether one chooses to accept or deny the horrible mistreatment of African Americans in this country comes solely out of if that person has benefitted from this injustice or not. Wealthy white men and women who have been able to live out the “American Dream” are on the opposing side of Baldwin’s argument, due to the fact that in their realm of society, everything has worked out. To the rest of society, it is clear that there has been major flaws in our nation’s history and need to be called upon. To be untouched by these problems or to turn a blind eye to them is entirely in correlation with how that individual views the world, and specifically, his place in the world.

Baldwin is also able to effectively create a sense of responsibility in the room for those who are on the opposing side of his argument. To further prove that the “American Dream” that certain individuals have achieved is only possible through the expense of African Americans, Baldwin breaks down in specifics how this “dream” came to be a reality.

“*I* picked the cotton, *I* carried it to the market, and *I* built the railroads under someone else’s whip for nothing. For nothing. The Southern oligarchy, which has still today so very much power in Washington, and therefore some power in the world, was created by my labor and my sweat, and the violation of my women and the murder of my children. This, in the land of the free, and the home of the brave. And no one can challenge that statement. It is a matter of historical record.”

By speaking in first person, Baldwin takes something that seems so distant to these people and makes it personal. He creates a sense of emotion by explaining, in detail, the suffering of real people within the African American community. This visual makes it impossible for people in the room to hide from what has been done and to deny responsibility of it. He is able to convey that all things created that constitute the “American Dream” are only made possible through the anguish of people just like him.There is no real sense of equality in this nation if this process is the only way to live out the “American Dream.” It is so clear that this “dream” is impossible without the expense of African Americans and there is no way to argue around it—it is a part of history that must be accepted in order to create change.

Decades of the Same Issue: Can it be Resolved?

After viewing this debate, it does not shock me that James Baldwin successfully won the debate, “Is the American dream at the expense of the American Nigro?” Baldwin was able to eloquently describe his points that were, especially at the time, controversial topics of race to a room of around six hundred white men. His stature and confidence in his presentation was impressive. His argument was that in order to understand how the American dream hinders the American Nigro, perspective of an individual can greatly affect how the question is answered. If someone does not have experience from the perspective of an African American, then it becomes extremely difficult to understand the setbacks that are present. Baldwin states:

“The reaction to that question has to depend on an affect, an affect on where you find yourself in the world. What your sense of reality is, what your system of reality is. That is, it depends on assumptions which we hold so deeply as to be scarcely aware of them.”

This is a significant point in his argument because it allows him to next explain the American dream in the eyes of an Africans American man. By emphasizing that there truly is a gap that divides black and white peoples’ experience, Baldwin captures the audience’s attention, an effective transition in his setting.

Baldwin explains to the audience that as a child, African Americans are raised thinking that they are white, truly equal, until about the age 8. Reality turns the world upside down, and by the age of 30 nothing has changed, despite all the efforts. The idea of being raised to value a society that does not value you is incredibly difficult to comprehend. Today, most people are told to make a name for themselves, to make a space in society that is significant to them. It is staggering that this notion is still applicable today. The effort of true equality can only start on an individual level, and across every household and in every group. The only way to change the outlook on groups of minority is to change the way we teach about them. As Baldwin suggests, history and the way it is taught must be made more diverse.

Hunger for Education

Richard Rodriguez had an interesting upbringing paired with his academic experience. In his piece, “The Achievement of Desire: Personal Reflections on Learning ‘Basics,’” Rodriguez creates this interesting notion that his primary discourse – or what it should have been – is in fact not his primary discourse at all. He grew up in academia. He loved it. He forced himself to read about and learn about subjects that he did not like because he felt as though he needed to have all of the information available. It was also no secret, he was far better off in the classroom than either of his parents had been. He makes an ample amount of remarks regarding how his parents were always discrediting him and his intelligence as he got smarter because they were not entirely sure how to handle it. Despite him noting that he absolutely had the love and support of his family, he was uncomfortable at home. He loved the language of his teachers and mentors. He often found himself trying to mimic them and be like them. These were the people, he thought, that knew what they were doing. I just want to finish this thought with, no, I do not believe that he thought his parents were not doing anything right, he just adored his hunger for learning and had to keep feeding it and the teachers were the ones with all the knowledge.

To continue, I found it interesting how he ends up coming full circle and he begins to learn to appreciate his past and his parents and everything. Rodriguez understands that he does not act like those of his family at home. He is different, he chose a different path than them and felt as though the discourse that he picked up along the way was what felt comfortable to him. Rodrigues highlights his eventual longing of the past when he notes ,

“I remembered in my parents, growing older—before I turned, unafraid, to desire the past, and thereby achieved what had eluded me for long, the end of education.”
Rodriguez, 254

I found this to be an interesting way to finish off the piece because he recognizes the differences in himself from his family and he attributes it to his hunger for education and always wanting to learn more. He does not denounce it or even say it was negative, but he understands that what should have been his primary discourse and first course of language ended up being an uncomfortable secondary discourse for him because he never truly embraced it for what it was.

Response to Rodriguez

In Rodriguez’s “The Achievement of Desire: Personal Reflections on Learning ‘Basics,’” Rodriguez highlights the struggle of balancing an academic career with his home life. When he throws himself into his studies at an early age, he quickly notices the implications that it has on his home life. This struggle is especially reflected in his relationship with his parents. He mentions that whenever his parents would ask him about what he learned at school, he would keep his answers short and vague, not wanting to share too much. He would read often, which caused him to engage less with his family, staying in his room, so he wouldn’t be distracted by the sounds of his home. He mentions that he felt his parents “were always behind” him. His parents gave him and his siblings the means to succeed academically, however, it also caused them to distance themselves from each other. Rodriguez’s interest in academics didn’t only affect him, but it also his parents as well.

There’s no denying the sense of pride that Rodriguez’s parents feel towards his academic success’s, however, Rodriquez mentions that they began to become dismissive of his intelligence. Whenever there was an argument in the house, his parents would defend their statements by simply saying “It’s what we were taught in our time to believe,” which immediately ended the discussion. Even though Rodriguez has had more academic success than his parents, they are still his parents and still have authority over him, which makes it easy for them to discount his statements.

Rodriguez has conflicting emotions when it comes to his academics. He feels a draw towards learning that seems to overpower the guilt that he also feels. This guilt coming from the separation he notices between himself and his home life. He feels like he is responsible for this change that has occurred in his home.

“I kept so much, so often to myself. Sad. Guilty for the excitement of coming upon new ideas, new possibilities. Eager. Fascinated. I hoarded the pleasures of learning. Alone for hours. Enthralled. Afraid. Quiet (the house noisy), I rarely looked away from my books – or back on my memories.”
Rodriguez, 243

Even though his schooling caused him to distance himself from his home life, he also became appreciative of it later on. His studies gave him the knowledge to look back on his childhood and try and recover what he lost.

“I needed to understand how far I had moved from my past – to determine how fast I would be able to recover something of it once again.”
Rodriguez, 254

I feel like many of us can relate to the fear of coming home with a report card to show to our parents, scared that they aren’t going to be pleased with the results. Maybe the few times they weren’t, it caused tension in the house, with maybe a grounding or two to follow. Rodriguez has a whole different take on it, which I never really considered before. He was scared to succeed rather as well as fail. Rodriguez was a good student (although he highlights he was really only good at mimicking, instead of forming his own ideas), and he felt like he had to hide this from his parents. If he shared his successes with his parents, he felt like they wouldn’t understand, but when he keeps his thoughts to himself, he’s separating himself from his parents.

Trying to relate to Rodriguez, I can think of one example. I remember when I entered high school, the only thing that I knew about politics was what I heard about from my parents. However, the more educated I became, I began to form my own opinions, which opposed the views of my parents. I remember expressing some of my views and immediately being shut down. It felt similar to when Rodriguez would try to have a discussion with his parents, who wouldn’t really listen to his side of things. I learned to stop bringing up my own thoughts whenever the conversation turned to politics. I learned to keep quiet because I knew I would upset my parents if I said anything contradictory. Although this is only a small piece of my home life that has been affected, it seems like Rodriguez is expressing a shift in his own home life which has a much greater magnitude. “In place of the sounds of intimacy which once flowed easily between us, there was the silence.”

Smart Cookie: Scholarship Boys and Discourse Translation

The “scholarship boy”—lets translate it to “scholarship student” since this isn’t the 1970s anymore—is a student that becomes obsessive over academic success and becomes changed by this education obsession. They separate themselves from all distractions—mainly their family and the things they once loved. Richard Rodriguez illustrates his time as a scholarship student and how he found himself isolating himself in book, finding that he was distancing himself from his parents in favor of studying. He was distancing himself from his primary discourse—from his home and family and first learned behavior, in favor for a non-dominant secondary discourse.

The scholarship student is driven by success, the approval of superiors, and the knowledge they gain—social goods. However, because it is a secondary discourse, it’s hard to insert themselves into this space—they have to develop the body language, the values, and language associated to this new space. But, because it’s not their primary identity and discourse then it’s not going to be easy for them to conform. Rodriguez was forcing himself to read books he didn’t like because it was on some smart-sounding list and felt he would further understand the space he had sat himself in. He idolized his teachers and found himself trying to speak like them, mimicking them. It was all imitation and through that imitation he nurtured a secondary discourse that seemed to have overtook his primary one. He became so immersed into his secondary discourse that he forgot how to perform in his primary discourse. But, was his primary language truly replaced or was he just adding new behavior to his primary discourse?

In trying to support this thought, I stumbled upon a whole long paper written by Taylor Weeks, Understanding Discourse Transition. I only read a little bit of it because its 47 pages long and I’m not that crazy, but the gist of what Weeks is trying to propose in his paper is basically figuring out what Rodriguez and other scholarship students go through with their discourses. He questions “if a discourse can be changed slightly over time, is it the same discourse that person first learned as a child?” And he also asks, “if we do indeed change any small parts of our discourse over time, then can we replace the initial discourse we learned as children with a completely new discourse or has it become a strong dominant secondary discourse?” He decides to explore these questions by looking at military veterans and how their time in the military had affected them over time and how they interact once they are placed back into civilian life—specifically looking at how they adjust to college.

Throughout boot camp, a recruit’s initial discourse language begins to be replaced by a military discourse language. This military language is about sameness, about being indistinguishable from their peers appearance-wise, body language-wise, speech-wise, and so on. Once dropped into a different situation, a civilian situation, like a classroom, there is a difficulty to act within this discourse full of uniqueness. They don’t understand their place in this “new” world. This is like how education—a space that’s organized and quiet and full of logical—and then going home to a space full of disorganization, loudness, and more emotional. Even if the home space is what they grew up with, someone so enraptured by education has made their initial discourse language foreign to themselves. They can no longer function in that space the same way they did before. Weeks equates this process to baking cookies. “Depending on the recipe, you can make different cookies. Like a person’s discourse, we all learn at least one way to make cookies when we are children. As we develop our social language, we sometimes add things to our primary discourse. As with baking cookies, if we add any new element to our cookie recipe, we have changed our cookie recipe. No matter what we added to our cookie recipe, we will not make the same type of cookie that we learned how to make when we were children.”

Taylor Weeks’ Understanding Discourse Transition: https://scholarworks.uark.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=4000&context=etd

We Need More Unity

After reading Anzaldúa’s piece, I was thoroughly intrigued by her use of language and how she would switch back from English to Spanish. This created a unique piece that I would describe as not “Anglo” literature or “Chicano” literature, but instead a combination of the many influences she has had on her writing as well as her life experiences. For example, she writes about the many languages used in the Southwest, which were: Standard English, Working slang English, Standard Spanish, Standard Mexican Spanish, North Mexican Spanish dialect, Chicano Spanish, Tex-Mex, and Pachuco. All of these languages and/or dialects influence her writing and it is shown in this work. Therefore, I would argue that Anzaldúa’s work was not an American or a Mexican piece, but an amalgamation of the unique culture present in America’s Southwest.

Although I did thoroughly enjoy Anzaldúa’s piece and the structure of it, I do have some issues with parts of her work. For example, she constantly utilizes the words ‘we’ and ‘our’ when referring to Chicanos. Does this mean that she is speaking for all Chicanos? If so, I feel that it is very difficult for one person to accurately speak for an entire group of people. In addition, I feel that she could have ended her work on a more conciliatory tone. For example, in her second to last paragraph she makes the statement, “tenémos que hacer la lucha,” which roughly translates to we have to fight. Also, the last paragraph it almost sounds if she is saying that Chicano and American culture is incompatible; and that Chicanos “will walk by the crumbling ashes as we go about our business…we, the mestizas and mestizos, will remain.” This quote and the general tone of her ending should have stressed unity and co-existing, not that only the mestizas and mestizos, will remain.

Borders Do Not Define Us.

Gloria Anzaldua’s “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” confronts the restrictive borders of language that she has faced throughout her life. Growing up as a Chicano, Anzaldua found a sense of self within multiple cultures and often spoke a blend of English and Spanish. Chicano Spanish is a blend of languages and it “sprang out of the Chicanos’ need to identify [themselves] as a distinct people”. Obviously, language and identify are interconnected, especially for the Chicano people. Discourse helps the Chicano people feel connected to each other. For Anzaldua, speaking Chicano is her way of distinguishing herself from others and embracing her bilingualism. However, she has struggled with finding a sense of belonging in the Chicano culture because she was constantly reminded that “Chicano” does not fit a national identity.

“Chicana feminists often skirt around each other with suspicion and hesitation. For the longest time, I couldn’t figure it out. Then it dawned on me. To be close to another Chicana is like looking into the mirror. We are afraid of what we’ll see there. Pena. Shame. Low estimation of self”.

Here, Anzaldua is admitting that Chicanos are afraid to see their own reflections in fear of perceiving the illegitimacy of Chicano culture. Their beliefs about language come from others who fit into a specific culture identity. Similarly to Min-Zhan Lu, Anzaldua feels silenced by society. Although Anzaldua feels ashamed in public, she has an intrinsic sense of pride in her “synergy of two cultures” that no one can take away from her. Obviously, Anzaldua cannot disguise her Chicano pride when she describes how the “corridos” songs make her feel:

“Yet I couldn’t stop my feet from thumping to the music, could not stop humming the words, nor hide from myself the exhilaration I felt when I heard it”.

This internal conflict between shame and pride, identity and invalidation, shows the power of language and the control it has over a group of people.

“How to Tame a Wild Tongue” is a symbolic piece illustrating the role language plays in Anzaldua’s identity. She fully embraces her Chicano culture and refutes dominant culture through her usage of “Spanglish” throughout the essay. Anzaldua’s contribution to the discussion about language and identity gives us a new perspective, that advances the conversation in a unique way. Anzaldua feels that as long as she is conforming to dominant culture by suppressing her ability to “switch codes”, she cannot take pride in herself because she believes “I am my language”. Everyone has a right to discourse and a right to their sense of belonging, regardless of these fabricated borders.

Tara Lockhart’s Piece on Anzaldúa

I was instructed to read Tara Lockhart’s piece:

“Writing the Self: Gloria Anzaldúa, Textual Form, and Feminist Epistemology”

along with Anzaldúa’s piece, to make connections between the two, and to analyze Lockhart’s view on Anzaldúa’s story through a more feminist, textural lens. The link to Lockhart’s piece is found below if you want to give it a look:

Link

Being at A Crossroads & Being One Herself

“Who is to say that robbing a people of its language is less violent than war?”

-Ray Gwyn Smith

Gloria Anzaldúa’s piece is one filled with raw emotions, harsh criticisms of language and the way we use it, and an exploration of her inner-self and how she has coped with the hardships she has faced being a Chicana woman.

Growing up on the physical borderland of the Texas-US Southwest/Mexican border, Anzaldúa lived in a place she called a “place of contradiction where hatred, anger, and exploitation are part of the landscape but also where she finds a certain joy, especially at the unique positioning consciousness takes at the confluent streams.” (page 356). Anzaldúa grew up in a place where she was reprimanded for speaking Spanish on the playground and was told to control her Spanish tongue in order to seem more professional and to be respected in a society that did not understand her and her people.

Anzaldúa lived her life constantly grappling with the many languages and dialects she was able to speak such as Standard English, Tex-Mex, and Standard Spanish. For her, Tex-Mex was her preferred language – it made her feel welcomed and at home. She was often told by other people that her Chicano Spanish was incorrect, when really, it was a border tongue which developed naturally; it was a living language. (358)

The thing about being a Chicano is that if a person has a low estimation of her native tongue, they automatically have a low estimation of her. (361) From the other readings we have looked at in class, we can understand that this is very specific to people who do not speak English or even “proper” English dialects. Anzaldúa experiences language as a monumental part of who she is.

“I am my language.”

-Anzaldúa (362)

When looking at Tara Lockhart’s analysis of Anzaldúa’s piece in “Writing the Self: Gloria Anzaldúa, Textual Form, and Feminist Epistemology”, she offers insights of how Anzaldúa’s switching between English and Spanish throughout the piece is meant to be a strong, polemical statement. Reading Anzaldúa’s piece, I noticed how powerful it was because of the fact that it integrated both English and Spanish so effortlessly, showcasing Anzaldúa’s familiarity with both languages, and somehow making the reader uncomfortable in a way that Anzaldúa definitely meant to do. Her incorporating Spanish was to make English-only-speaking readers confront their own limitations and turn them into the “other” – something that they may feel as though they cannot identify with if they consider themselves a part of the dominant culture.

An important, interesting aspect of Anzaldúa’s piece that Lockhart brings to light is the fact that Anzaldúa’s essay is formatted in a way that she utilizes many page breaks and uses the white space to her advantage.

“Patches of speech and ideas are simultaneously held apart for contemplation.”

-Tara Lockhart

Anzaldúa uses these page breaks to make the reader pause and think about what she has just discussed, especially when she incorporates Spanish into the piece – she wants the reader to feel uncomfortable, to feel confusion, to feel the raw emotion Anzaldúa is emitting at being at a crossroads and ultimately, being a crossroad of multiple identities and languages herself.

I’ll end my response with a quote from Lockhart that caught my eye and for me, really captured Anzaldúa’s message:

“Chicanos are held together by their differences and this realization and recognition of difference is crucial to hybrid identity.”

-Tara Lockhart