Matthew Menke

8/29/16
2:45-4:00
Anya Connelly
Formal Writing Assignment #1

What does language mean to you? How much of language makes up your identity? To
Gloria Anzaldua, language is everything to her, it is essential to her identity as a Chicana and a
woman. The Spanish language is her major love and is precious to her. As Ovid once wrote,
Militat omnis amans, every lover is a soldier. (Ehrlich, 158). She gives a spirited defense like a
soldier for the solidarity of Spanish and wishes to bring down the English speakers that
threatened her mother tongue and accuses them of linguistic terrorism, a term whose
arguments lack credibility according to this author. The essay How to Tame a Wild Tongue by
Gloria Anzaldua makes some good arguments but also makes some bad arguments. Overall
Anzaldua makes more bad arguments through non-cogent reasoning. Some of her arguments
have validity, but lack valid premises and conclusions, as L&CR would say. (Cavender, 9). Her
best arguments make use of valid evidence and has believable premises. Her faulty arguments
use sweeping statements, bigoted statements in regards to men and whites, engaging in bigotry
against a group of people can automatically invalidate your argument, no matter what argument
you are trying to make. Finally, she also makes a contradictory statement in her essay, which also
invalidates whatever argument you are try to make. This paper will engage in a rhetorical
analysis of the bulk of Anzalduas essay and analyze exactly what she got right and what she got
wrong.
In the beginning of her essay, Anzaldua talks about a personal experience she had at
school when she was growing up. She tells a story about how during recess she was caught

speaking Spanish, merely teaching a friend of hers on how to pronounce her name and the
teacher caught her. The teacher reprimanded her for not speaking English, If you want to be
American, speak American. If you dont like it, go back to Mexico where you belong.
(Anzaldua, 1). Anzaldua was hit on the knuckles with a ruler and sent to stand in the corner.
Anzaldua then proceeds to talk about how trying to rid someone of their native tongue is a
violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution. Her argument here is very valid since
language ties directly into freedom of speech, if you are not allowed to speak the language, it is a
direct violation of freedom of speech and expression. In this regard, Anzaldua makes a good,
strong argument in this part of essay.
To cover one of the more faulty points of Anzalduas essay, she makes a bigoted
statement in regards to males. Anzaldua begins her argument by talking about how in Spanish,
the word nosotras, which means we with the feminine suffix. She states that when she first
heard a Puerto Rican and a Cuban use nosotras, she was shocked. According to her, Chicanas
alway use nosotros, which has the masculine suffix in Continental (Castilian) Spanish, whether
the person they are referring to is male or female. In response to this, she blatantly declares, We
are robbed of our female being by the masculine plural. Language is a male discourse.
(Anzaldua, 2). This statement here is out and out bigotry and bias against men. It would be
inaccurate to say that the statement isnt completely true, throughout history men have had the
greatest say over language and how it is to be. However, the mere use of a masculine suffix used
in a nontraditional manner does not rob a woman of a female identity. Using a masculine or
feminine term in language doesnt always apply to feminine things, it applies to terms that are
obvious. In German for example, the word mother is Mutter with the feminine form of the,
which is die. It is a feminine noun because it is obvious a mother is a woman. Other words in

German are feminine not because they automatically apply to women, it is usually because the
word ends with an -e. In Spanish, whatever form or dialect is spoken, there are a lot of
similarities to the structure just described. A woman can speak the Chicano/Chicana dialect of
Spanish and still retain her female being, this is something that honestly shouldnt matter to
anyone. In another passage of her essay, she speaks about another way in which language can be
oppressive.
Further in to Anzalduas essay, she brings up a very unusual concept, the idea of
linguistic terrorism. She starts out her argument with talking about how Chicanas who grew up
speaking their native Spanish have been taught that they speak a poor version of Spanish, to
quote her, It is illegitimate, a bastard language. (Anzaldua, 4). She then proceeds to discuss
how Latinas and Chicanas can have a difficult time talking to each other, how there is discomfort
with both in communicating because of linguistic differences. She then makes a very bold
statement, We oppress each other trying to out-Chicano each other, vying to be real Chicanas,
to speak like Chicanos. (Anzaldua, 4). To me, this is a ludicrous statement, the word
oppression is too strong to express the negative aspects of what Anzaldua described. While I
will say that she does have a point, the idea that different groups of Latinos should be
uncomfortable with each others ways of speaking Spanish is ridiculous. They are, as Anzaldua
wrote, unwarranted attacks on ones sense of self. But to equate this to terrorism, which is in
reality a very violent and destructive force is asinine in the utmost. According to L&CR, this is
what is known as an insufficiently grounded belief. To quote from the textbook, ...there is a
large dose of truth in the idea that an unexamined worldview is not likely to be worth holding.
(Cavender, 20), Anzalduas viewpoint can be challenged with examination of the evidence of
history that she seems to have ignored. Throughout time, there have been cases of certain groups

of people actually attacking and attempting to destroy speakers of a certain language through the
use of the sword and the gun. An example of this is the Holocaust in Europe, the Nazis attempted
to destroy along with the Jews their preferred language in Europe, Yiddish. Even though it has
many similarities to German, it was still actively targeted for extinction because it was spoken by
Jews. This is real linguistic terrorism, using gun and gas to silence an entire language, not
whether a friend at a party will be accepting of the way you speak Spanish or not. Her arguments
demonstrate the privileged place she occupied living in America, even in spite of the difficulties
she encountered throughout her life. She has never lived through real oppression on a grand
scale, where there have been languages that were fully criminalized by law and speaking them
would result in death. Right after this argument, she makes a smaller but still important argument
about Spanish being taught in schools.
Anzaldua points out that in American schools, learning French is more encouraged than the
learning of Spanish in high schools and colleges because, ...French is considered more
cultured. (Anzaldua, 4). This statement was definitely true at one point in history, but since
this essay was written back in the 1980s, this has become very outdated. When I went to high
school, the languages German, French and Spanish were offered. I remember Spanish being
more emphasized over the other two languages, Spanish was considered more important than
French or German. Even today since moving to California from Washington, Spanish is even
more emphasized down here, in fact, if you took Spanish while at school and you can speak it
well, you be paid more than the person who only speaks English. Times have definitely changed
since Anzaldua wrote her essay, I wonder if she ever caught on to that herself.
Finally, the last faulty argument she makes is somewhat stretched out through the essay. But she
contradicts herself in a major way while being biased against white people. In the middle of the

essay, Anzaldua writes, I will no longer be made to feel ashamed of existing. I will have my
voice: Indian, Spanish, white. (Anzaldua, 4). After that, at the very end of the essay, she
declares, ...we count the days the weeks the years the centuries the eons until the white laws and
commerce and customs will rot in the deserts theyve created (Anzaldua, 6-7). This is a
blatant contradiction because earlier she wrote that she will embrace her white ancestry, but then
at the end she totally shifts her tone and basically wishes for whites and everything created by
them to die off. This is probably the worst argument made in the entire paper, contradictions and
bigotry destroy any argument that is being made and should not be taken seriously.
In conclusion, while Anzaldua made a couple strong arguments, overall she employed a great
deal of faulty and insufficiently grounded arguments. What contributed to her lack of validity
was inaccurate information, unbelieveable premises, contradiction and bigotry. Examining the
historical record showed that overall Anzalduas views were not credible, her foundations for her
staple points like linguistic terrorism did not stand up to rational examination, she made use of a
major contradiction and projected bias towards an entire group of people. The saving grace for
this essay is that it was a thought-provoking read and helped me further hone my reasoning
skills. No matter what you read, no matter how much you might agree or disagree with what you
are reading, if it makes you think about how the world works or how things that take place in the
world and helps further improve your point of view, sine praeiudicio, without prejudice, then
there is still a major benefit to be derived from the experience.

Works Cited
Anzaldua, Gloria. Borderlands: The New Mestiza = La Frontera. San Francisco: Spinsters/Aunt
Lute, 1987. Print.
Ehrlich, Eugene and Margaret Brucia A. Veni, Vidi, Vici: Conquer Your Enemies, Impress Your
Friends with Everyday Latin. New York: Harpercollins, 2010. Print.
Kahane, Howard and Nancy Cavender. Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric: The Use of Reason in
Everyday Life. Australia: Thomson Wadsworth, 2006. Print.