MDC The Language of the Frontier by Gloría Anzaldúa Discussion

The late Gloría Anzaldúa was a writer, poet, activist, and instructor of Chicano studies, women’s studies, and creative writing at the University of California at Santa Cruz. The selection below is from her book Borderlands/La Frontera. In this excerpt, Anzaldúa embraces the use of multiple English and Spanish dialects to express the many cultural and social influences in her life.

“Pocho, cultural traitor, you’re speaking the oppressor’s language by speaking English, you’re ruining the Spanish language.” I have been accused by various Latinos and Latinas. Chicano Spanish is considered by the purist and by most Latinos deficient, a mutilation of Spanish.

But Chicano Spanish is a border tongue which developed naturally. Change, evolución, enriquecimiento de palabras nuevas por invención or adopción have created variants of Chicano Spanish, un Nuevo lenguaje. Un lenguaje que corresponde a un modo de vivir. Chicano Spanish is not incorrect, it is a living language.

For 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, what 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 the terms that are neither español ni ingles, but both. We speak a patois, a forked tongue, a variation of two languages.

Chicano Spanish sprang out of the Chicanos’ need to identify ourselves as a distinct people. We needed a language with which we could communicate with ourselves, a secret language. For some of us, language is a homeland closer than the Southwest—for many Chicanos today live in the Midwest and the East. And because we are a complex, heterogeneous people, we speak many languages. Some of the languages we speak are

1. 1. 1. 1. Standard English
         2. Working-class and slang English
         3. Standard Spanish
         4. Standard Mexican Spanish
         5. North Mexican Spanish dialect
         6. Chicano Spanish (Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California have regional variations)
         7. Tex-Mex
         8. Pachuco (called caló)

My “home” tongues are the languages I speak with my sister and brothers, with my friends. They are the last five listed, with 6 and 7 being the closest to my heart. From school, the media, and job situations, I’ve picked up standard and working-class English. From Mamagrande Locha and from reading Spanish and Mexican literature, I’ve picked up Standard Spanish and Standard Mexican Spanish. From los recién llegados, Mexican immigrants, and braceros, I have learned the North Mexican dialect. From my parents and Chicanos living in the Valley, I picked up Chicano Texas Spanish, and I speak it with my mom, younger brother (who married a Mexican and who rarely mixes Spanish with English), aunts, and older relatives.

With Chicanas from Nuevo México or Arizona I will speak Chicano Spanish a little, but often they don’t understand what I’m saying. With most California Chicanas I speak entirely in English (unless I forget). When I first moved to San Francisco, I’d rattle off something in Spanish, unintentionally embarrassing them. Often it is only with another Chicana tejano that I can talk freely.

Words distorted by English are known as anglicisms or pochismos. The pocho is an anglicized Mexican or American of Mexican origin who speaks Spanish with an accent characteristic of North Americans and who distorts and reconstructs the language according to the influence of English. Tex-Mex, or Spanglish, comes most naturally to me. I may switch back and forth from English to Spanish in the same sentence or in the same word. With my sister and my brother Nune and with Chicano tejano contemporaries I speak in Tex-Mex.

From kids and people my own age I picked up Pachuco. Pachuco (the language of the zoot suiters) is a language of rebellion, both against Standard Spanish and Standard English. It is a secret language. Adults of the culture and outsiders cannot understand it. It is made up of slang words from both English and Spanish. Ruca means girl or woman, vato means guy or dude, chale means no, simón means yes, churro is sure, talk is periquiar, pigionear means petting, que gachomeans how nerdy, ponte águila means watch out, death is called la pelona. Through lack of practice and not having others who can speak it, I’ve lost most of the Pachuco tongue.

Reflection Questions

1. Can you identify ways you adjust your language choices based on who you are speaking with?
2. How are these language choices different and similar to what Gloría Anzaldúa describes?
3. What language devices does Anzaldúa use in her own narrative?

4. Why does Anzaldúa begin her essay by repeating an insult directed at her, but spoken in both English and Spanish?

Excerpted from Gloría Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute Books, 1987, 1999). Reprinted by permission of Aunt Lute Books.

ANSWER THE QUESTIONS IN A 1 PAGE, DOUBLE SPACED,12 PT TIMES NEW ROMAN WORD DOCUMENT.