America is one of the biggest nations that has the largest number of diverse citizens living

in the country. Many of these people from diverse cultures feel that they have to make a choice
between keeping the own language or adopting the American language. In the essay How to
Tame a Wild Tongue by Gloria Anzaldua she demonstrates the different battles, and fights that
multicultural citizens face. Anzalduas purpose in her works is to demonstrate how people from
different countries have a hard time blending with different cultures through personal experience.
Her examples focus on Latin heritage, and how they have a hard time merging their culture with
American culture focus on the blending of language. In my rhetorical analysis I will substantiate
the author's point, and will argue her cogent reasoning. Anzaldua makes a valid argument. By
using pathos she is able to get in touch with a large audience on an emotional level. By
delivering a thoughtful tone she uses her personal experience to support her claims. Anzaldua
succeeded in showing how multicultural citizens suffer ridicule in schools, dont feel like they
belong anywhere, find that a civilization has different subcultures, and cultures fight to preserve
their heritage. Through personal experience she tells us stories from when she was a child up to
her adulthood. Anzaldua shows her struggles as Latin American women as she tries to adapt, to
learn the language of American while trying to maintain her self-identity.
The intended audience Anzaldua targets are both people who are attempting to blend
cultures with America, and likewise making it aware of people who already are of the American
civilization. Those that bear the most during this conversion are the youngest citizens the
children, and the teens. Kids are pressured to adjust quicker than their adult counterparts. They
are automatically thrown into the school system, and they are surrounded by something that they
do not understand. Many are confused because they dont realize whats going on. In the past
children used to be punished for speaking in their first language If the children dont learn

English, they are scolded for not learning fast enough. Multicultural children in schools have
more pressure on them to learn because if they don't perform well in school then that reflects
poorly on the school.
The Anzalduas tone in her essay How to Tame a Wild Tongue is serious because she
wanted to unveil the truth of difficulty, and the confrontations of being multicultural. During her
school years when she was a child she was forced to speak English. If she was caught speaking
Spanish she was scolded Anzaldua states I remember being caught speaking Spanish at recessthat was for three locks on the knuckles with a sharp ruler. I remember being sent to the corner of
the classroom for talking back to the Anglo teacher when all I was trying to do was tell her
how to pronounce my name.(53). Anzaldua explains that there is too much pressure on children,
students are given little to no time to learn a new language. In addition to facing ridicule in
schools people from different cultures dont feel like they belong anywhere.
Racial discrimination still exists in the United States, many people from a different
culture are frowned at and picked on for practicing their culture's language. These people are
turned down for jobs because their English skills are not up to the pair, and are forced to obtain
labor that requires a lot of physical endurance. If they go to school, and graduate from college
their culture may turn on them, and then they are labeled traitors by their culture because they
dont work in the fields or factories, and work with white people. People from different
cultures have a different subculture. This causes some confusion between the cultures that comes
from the same country. In the subcultures, they are making fun of them because their accents and
pernusatseation is off, so they are not understood properly, and also because of this some of them
are laughed at because they sound funny. Cultures are both ridiculed for not knowing English,
and not knowing how to talk their proper language because they accommodate new words, and a

new accent. In the United States if you go to New Jersey you hear people talk differently, they
have words with different significance, and even their mannerisms are different. Take California,
for example, people call other people bro, dude, and sup man this is a subculture within a
culture. Anzaldua explains that all cultures that adopt the English language start developing their
own subculture. Anzaldua endorses A language which they can connect their intent to, one
capable of communicating the realities, and values true to themselves a language with terms
that are neither Espanol Ni ingles, but both. We speak a patio, a forked tongue, and a variation of
two languages.(55). Anzaldua demonstrates the difficulties of maintaining the articulation of an
original language when, so many subcultures have adapted new words. This causes a lot of
words to disappear within their culture, and they lose the original voice that came from their
homeland. In addition to different cultures have different subcultures the also that the cultures
fight to keep their heritage.
When someone from a different culture is introduced to the English language in the
United States they are also expected to speak English within the office and only talk in a
different language when it only calls for it. Even at home around family, they are expected to
dress in their cultures social outfits. People from different cultures feel comfortable when they
are around family, and friends because they feel that they do not have to be something that they
are forced to be. They also experience a great deal of pressure from their adopting a new
language because they do not want to break up their heritage. Giving up your original heritage is
giving up the first views of the word that you memorized from your childhood.
Anzaldua used pathos to capture her audience with emotions. By applying her personal
experience she reaches out to many masses that have lived through her same ordeals, and to
share a common bond. Her description of her spirit from childhood to when she turns an adult

was a foundation of truth. She demonstrates how a single bicultural person struggles between
maintaining the balance of two cultures. Anzaldua rhetorical effectiveness overall was excellent.
She had plenty of details backing up her claims by using her own personal experiences as a Latin
American women struggling to keep her roots of her ancestry. Her details supporter her focus,
and she did not have any irrelevant information. She also used pathos very effectively to reach
out to her audience as a writer.
The Conflict that all cultures face when they go to a new country will forever exist as
long as there are different civilizations about the globe. Gloria Anzaldua demonstrates in her
essay by using personal experience How to Tame a Wild Tongue that learning to adapt a new
language has two sides to it. On one side youre taking to be more diverse, and learning a new
terminology. That will open new doors of opportunity for you, and in the long run, will help you
improve your life in many ways. Not just for you, but also for your familys next generation, and
another generation to come On the other hand, because you are adopting, and new culture your
original heritage will slowly disappear because you start to forget where you came from, and
become fully immersed into your new culture, and the next generation of your family will stop
doing all the old traditions from your original heritage. People love to have a dream of a better
life for themselves and their family. The clich the grass is greener on the other side has been
told in many countries, and in many languages. For many starting a new life in a new country
like the United States is a dream that will give their family many opportunities for them.
Likewise, for some civilizations, it is a means to come out of poverty, and for some countries a
means to escape a reign of terror. What these people fail to understand is that it will cost a price
for them to survive in a new civilization. The first generation that travels to the country will
struggle to maintain their cultural identity. After their children have children, and their childrens

have children, their roots of their original culture will have vanished. You can never forget who
you are, and where you came from.
Works Cited
Anzaldua, Gloria. How to Tame a Wild Tongue.