“Until I am free to write bilingually and to switch codes without always having to translate, while I still have to speak English or Spanish when I would rather speak Spanglish, and as long as I have to accommodate the English speakers rather than having them accommodate me, my tongue will be illegitimate. I will no longer be made to feel ashamed of existing. I will have my voice: Indian, Spanish, white. I will have my serpent’s tongue – my woman’s voice, my sexual voice, my poet’s voice. I will overcome the tradition of silence.”― Gloria E. AnzaldĂşa
The statement by Gloria Anzaldua focuses on the connection between her identity and the language she speaks. According to the author, her tongue manifests the diverse aspects of her personality that she does not want to suppress while communicating with others. She wants to embody her mixed racial background, femininity, and sexuality in her speech. The central concepts in the quote are gender and race, which foregrounds the necessity to analyze it from both perspectives. The author emphasizes the idea of race more than gender in this excerpt, but still, the message features both notions. Anzaldua regards the language she uses as the reflection of her cultural code and considers speaking only one language as the simplification of her diverse identity.
Native Spanish speakers are the minority in American society, meaning that the dominant majority expects them to adapt to American culture and use English. The author regards it as a humiliating attempt to accommodate the needs of the dominant social group, which she finds unacceptable. Race is not only the way to distinguish people in society but also the means of aggravating inequalities, suppressing minorities, and making them adapt to the cultural code of the majority. Davis (1983) writes that the “irrational notion of the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race” determined the cultural discourse in the United States for many centuries, and the 20th century was not the exception (p. 121). These lines reflect the racist worldview that most people traditionally have, and Anzaldua aims to oppose it. She wants to celebrate her mixed identity and show that she is proud to belong to racial minorities through her language.
Anzaldua emphasizes showing her gender identity in her speech because the traditionalist society also suppresses femininity. As Smith (1987) writes, the feminist movement allowed women to represent their rights in society without referring to the “women’s place” (p. 84). Gender was regarded as the means of discrimination and inequality for a long time, making women a vulnerable social group (Smith, 1987). Therefore, their desire of Anzaldua to end discrimination against women who were silent throughout history is represented in her willingness to speak up as a woman and not to feel ashamed of it.
Sexuality is the component of gender that Anzaldua mentions in the discussed passage. She refers to the sexual voice representing the eroticism that the traditional perception of female gender roles suppresses. Lorde (1984) defines sexuality as the power that women have, and the attempts of the traditionalist society to stop eroticism are the manifestation of its domination over women. Sexuality is an integral part of femininity, and Anzaldua is not afraid of manifesting it openly. She opposes society’s norms that still have the taboo on female sexuality. As a result, she wants to speak a language that does not make her feel ashamed of her nature.
Summing up, the quote by Anzaldua features the intersection of such concepts as race and gender. The author considers her language to reflect her identity; she does not want to simplify. She is a mixed-race woman who is not afraid of showing her sexuality, and she wants others to acknowledge it. As a result, Anzaldua does not wish to adopt the language she speaks to the dominant society’s norms that suppress these parts of her identity and heritage.
References
Davis, A. Y. (1983). Women, race, and class. ‎Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
Lorde, A. (1984). The uses of the erotic. Audre Lorde and The Crossing Press. Web.
Smith, D. (1987). Women’s perspective as a radical critique of sociology. In S. Harding (Ed.), Feminism and methodology (pp. 84-96). Indiana University Press.