Isaiah Nelson

Engw 1100

Identity

9/2/2015

Identity to me means…

Identity is an idea that is elusive to elusive to many of us but applies to everyone. However in the essay How to Tame a Wild Tongue by Gloria Anzaldua, Anzaldua discusses her identity and how her language defines her. She talks about keeping her identity in a world where other people such as English speaking Americans and even her mother want her to be something that she isn’t, all of which is represented through language. The overall theme of her essay says that her language makes her who she is and no one can change that, with a very similar theme I can make the same argument as to what Identity means to me. One’s identity is made by that person and it is a mix of how the person sees themselves and how they accept others to see them.

If you ask someone what their identity is or who they are they might make a list of features of things that apply to them however that is just what they are not who they are. Anzaldua alluded to who she was when she says “Often it is only with another Chicana tejana that I can freely talk.” in which she states that she can only show her true identity and be herself when she is talking to people that speak the same language the way she does. So this quote represents my overall definition of identity because she sees other Chicanas as accepting. therefore she can express her identity as opposed to in other situations she would need to speak a different language in order to communicate with a particular person.

Citation: Anzaldua, Gloria “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” Teaching Developmental Writing. Ed. Susan Naomi Bernstein. Fourth ed. New York: Bedford/st Martin’s, 2013 245-255. print