Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Analysis # 5 Post-Coloniality, "Borderlands/La Frontera", and "Walkout"

The critical theory of Post-Coloniality explains the text “Borderlands/La Frontera” by Gloria Anzaldua by demonstrating its ideas of combating colonialism’s enduring effects on cultures by challenging the indoctrination of the grand narrative, expressing the multiple voices, and showing the importance of language identity. Anzaldua talks about this in her essay and how she has felt that she has not been able to be anything else but what she has been told or taught to be. She recognizes the need for her people to be one of the many voices in the narrative of the United States in order to tell her people’s story also. She demonstrates this by giving examples of history and the civil rights movement. This is an example of challenging the grand narrative and the Mexican American people’s efforts in history to work towards adding their voce to the many voices in America, “Chicano’s did not know we were a people until 1965 when Ceasar Chavez and the farmworkers united and I am Joaquin was published and la Raza Unida party was formed in Texas” (Rivkin 1029). For the expressing multiple voices she differentiates ethnicity from being part of a country or coming from a country. She says she is Mexican because it is in her blood. She appreciates that part of herself that in innately inside of her and that is passed down in her family. For example, “Deep in our hearts we believe that being Mexican has nothing to do with which country one lives in. Being Mexican is a state of soul – not one of mind, not one of citizenship” (1029). She shows the pride that she feels and expresses it so the audience can know that being Mexican is not just where you are from. For the importance of language identity she continues Anzaldua goes into her essay of the need for her people to preserve their native tongue. she talks about how it is not just a language, just as how she had talked about how being Mexican is not just being from the country. She explains that being Mexican and the language are tied together. Language is not just and expression of their ethnicity. For example, “Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity – I am my language. Until I can take pride in my language, I cannot take pride in myself” (1027). She is urging her readers to understand the immense tie that there is between the two. Language is an expression of someone’s very soul and they take pride or should take pride in how they want to express themselves. For example, “If a person, Chicana or Latina, has a low estimation of my native tongue, she also has a low estimation of me” (1026). A combating of colonialism’s effects can be used through language. Anzaldua talks about her effort to learn a combination of Spanish and English that was created to rebel against the constant pressures of the colonialism efforts to speak correct English and her cultures expectations to speak proper Spanish. There is a lot of pressure on both ends but she comes out strong as ever with urge to want to feel the pride she wants to express. For example, “From kids and people my own age I picked up Pachuo. Pachuo (the language of the zoot suiters) is a language of rebellion, both against Standard Spanish and Standard English” (1025). There is this sense of empowerment here that she has created for her self and that she wants her readers to understand.
The power of language is demonstrated in this video from the movie "Walk Out". In the movie they are trying to fight for the respect from the government to create better school systems for the Chicano community. During this immense effort they learn to take pride in their ethnicity and language screaming "Que Viva La Raza" to motivate each other.

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