Fortunately, the neighborhood where they reside is an immigrant neighborhood. This, in a way, helps them to adjust to the U.S. life. A lady took Rosa to work in a clothing factory where most of the employers are the undocumented immigrants. Even though Rosa could not speak English, she can get the job by having other immigrants as her ‘sponsor.’ As illustrated in this film, immigrants tend to reside in a certain area. Flor Moreno (Spanglish) feels at home, once she arrived at the neighborhood where her sister lives in California. In the Book of Unknown Americans, one of the narrators briefly inform the readers how people reside according to what ethnicity they belong to. Regarding English as one of the abstract borders the immigrants have to
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For Mexican Americans, even though they were born in the U.S., their accented English can be a problem. As if being born in the U.S. is not enough to validate the American-ness. To be fully accepted by the mainstream America, they need to let go the authenticity of their tongues. In a chapter entitled How to Tame a Wild Tongue, Anzaldúa not only illustrates how languages (both English and Spanish) can be oppressive but also how she comes to acquire her language awareness (81-2). It is really striking when she wrote “until I can take pride in my language, I cannot take pride in myself” (80). In addition, her claim that ‘ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity’ elucidates her freedom to write bilingually and that she is not ashamed to use her native language. What Anzaldúa presented here is explicating language border conflict, a kind of clash that immigrants might experience. Tensions happened among the unseen borders can be more intriguing than the actual concrete walled or fenced …show more content…
According to Cassarino, a borderland is an area wider than a frontier and seen as “a transition zone within which the boundary lies” (3). This is somewhat in line with Anzaldúa’s description of borderland, referring it as a condition in a constant state of transition. However, such borderland, as specified by Renato Rosaldo, “should be regarded not as analytically empty transitional zone but as sites of creative cultural production” (208). Thus, borderland emerges as a place where meanings and identities are constantly contested and negotiated. For Anzaldúa, borderland “is vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary” (25). Stressing the inhabitants of borderland as “the prohibited and the forbidden,” Anzaldúa clearly elucidates the significance of the binary created in the border which suggests a sense of colonial relation as underlined by Mignolo and Tlostanova that “the very concept of border implies the existence of people, languages, religions and knowledge on both sides linked through relations established by the coloniality of power (e.g. structured by the imperial and colonial differences)” (208). In the context of U.S.-Mexico border, the gringos, the Anglos, the white people, are said to be the legitimate inhabitants. They have the power to dominate and control the border and thus label the inhabitants of the borderlands (which are Mexican descent) as transgressors
For Mexican Americans, even though they were born in the U.S., their accented English can be a problem. As if being born in the U.S. is not enough to validate the American-ness. To be fully accepted by the mainstream America, they need to let go the authenticity of their tongues. In a chapter entitled How to Tame a Wild Tongue, Anzaldúa not only illustrates how languages (both English and Spanish) can be oppressive but also how she comes to acquire her language awareness (81-2). It is really striking when she wrote “until I can take pride in my language, I cannot take pride in myself” (80). In addition, her claim that ‘ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity’ elucidates her freedom to write bilingually and that she is not ashamed to use her native language. What Anzaldúa presented here is explicating language border conflict, a kind of clash that immigrants might experience. Tensions happened among the unseen borders can be more intriguing than the actual concrete walled or fenced …show more content…
According to Cassarino, a borderland is an area wider than a frontier and seen as “a transition zone within which the boundary lies” (3). This is somewhat in line with Anzaldúa’s description of borderland, referring it as a condition in a constant state of transition. However, such borderland, as specified by Renato Rosaldo, “should be regarded not as analytically empty transitional zone but as sites of creative cultural production” (208). Thus, borderland emerges as a place where meanings and identities are constantly contested and negotiated. For Anzaldúa, borderland “is vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary” (25). Stressing the inhabitants of borderland as “the prohibited and the forbidden,” Anzaldúa clearly elucidates the significance of the binary created in the border which suggests a sense of colonial relation as underlined by Mignolo and Tlostanova that “the very concept of border implies the existence of people, languages, religions and knowledge on both sides linked through relations established by the coloniality of power (e.g. structured by the imperial and colonial differences)” (208). In the context of U.S.-Mexico border, the gringos, the Anglos, the white people, are said to be the legitimate inhabitants. They have the power to dominate and control the border and thus label the inhabitants of the borderlands (which are Mexican descent) as transgressors