Borderlands La Frontera

1. Gloria Anzaldua Borderlands La Frontera The New Mestiza Bria Monroe, Daisy Mendoza, Melissa Wong, Evette Tapia

2. Chapter 5 How to Tame a Wild Tongue • The Chapter Title “How to Tame a wild Tongue” focuses on the language of Spanish speaking people (The Chicanos) in different aspects. • Chapter took place in a dentist chair • Main Topics throughout the chapter • education different dialects, gendered biases of the languages Music And other communication topics. • Bastard Form Language: A combination of different Spanish, Native American, and English sounds and words were combined to develop into this Chicano Spanish.

3. What do you think Ray Gwyn Smith meant by the quote “Who is to say that robbing a people of its language is less violent than war?” (first pg. In chpt 5)

4. Chapter 5 Continued… • People may think that Chicanos and Latinos are the same, but in this section It talks about how chicanas feel uncomfortable talking in Spanish with Latinas, afraid that they may be speaking it wrong. • She has to take pride of her language before she takes pride in herself. • She begins to say that until it is legit to speak all the languages she mentions in the past pages, and then she is free. “and as long as I have to accommodate the English speakers rather than having them accommodate me, my tongue will be illegitimate.” (Anzaldua 81).

5. When she taught high school, she tried to implement the works of Chicano and got in trouble for it. • When she was getting her PhD, she had to plead semester after semester to the advisor to let her class be a Chicano Literature concentration. • There are subtle ways that we can all identify ourselves to our homeland. For her, food and certain smells are tied to her identity. • “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. Neither eagle or serpent, but both. And like the ocean, neither animal respects the borders” (Anzaldua 84).

6. How do you identify yourself to your homeland? What does it remind you of specifically?

7. Chapter 6 The Path of the Red and Black Ink • During her childhood, Gloria would read books in bed because she preferred imagination than sleeping. Her sister, Hilda, said that she would tell their mom that she was up all night reading unless she would tell her a story. • Gloria can look at her book that she is almost finished writing and she sees a mosaic pattern. Instead of seeing her book as words on a page, she sees a complex form of something that is almost living and it is also a performance. • Western cultures Vs. tribal cultures (how they view art) • Conscious Vs. subconscious The color white: Pure, hope, sterility, etc.

8. • Subconscious: disease, death, hopelessness. The color black: death, evil, destruction. • “Images are more direct than words, and closer to the unconscious” (pg 91). • Gloria is able to create stories in her head and watch everything play out. If she doesn’t do this, she would get ill. This is the reason why she thinks that writing heals her. She is able to create “movies” while she is in between sleeping and awake.

9. Why do you think Gloria prefers the world of imagination rather than sleep?

10. Chapter 6 Continued… • Writing about her experiences produces anxiety in her • For Gloria righting is a way to forget the pain, writing is part of her life • She describes her life and writing as one • She talks about another persons work and they describe writing as an experience of giving birth and how it would be easier to carry a child for nine months

11. Describe your writing experience.

12. Game Questions What are some of the languages the Chicanos speak? A.) Standard English B.)Tex.Mex C.)Working class and Slang English D.)All of the Above

13. True or FalseWhen the Chicanos came to American schools the teachers encouraged them to speak Spanish because that is their home language?

14. What was the setting of chapter 5? A) At school B) The Dentist C) Texas D) Church

15. What was a main topic throughout chapter 5? A) Education B) Different dialects C) Gendered biases of the languages D) All of the above

16. What do the upper class people view Chicano Spanish as? A) Bastard Language B) Spanish C)French D) None of the above

17. Consciously, what does the color white and black mean?

18. Subconsciously, what does the color white mean?

19. Why does Gloria describe images as a bridge and that words are the cables that hold the bridge?

20. How does Gloria view art?

21. What does writing help Gloria to do?

22. What does writing produce in her?

23. What does Gloria have to do in order to be a writer?

24. What does Tlilli and Tlapalli mean?

25. What kind of pattern does she see in the book?

26. What does she say being a writer is like for her?