As the entire class stared at me, I gulped and muttered “I don’t know.” Not knowing was a million times better than ever being wrong, or at least I thought it was. Me and the tight group of friends I had always prided ourselves on getting everything right. There was always a little competition going on between all of us but no one ever dared to say it. At the time I had no idea we were oppressing each other. We made each other feel like we had to get things right or there was no real purpose for being a part of the group. With it being high school and everybody already having their own clique I felt I needed to be a part of the group. I needed to be right all the time. I would never make another group of friends and I would be labeled a loner.
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Social change is needed because as time progresses societies evolve and continue to meet those new needs. What might have been considered okay fifty years ago could be looked at as downright barbaric today.
James Baldwin, an iconic writer and civil rights leader, argued the same thing in his letter A Talk to Teachers. This piece of writing covers an array of topics including 1963 Harlem, where poor communities were being exploited and under resourced, and racism was being looked at as a norm. Baldwin urged teachers to teach students to be able to analyze and understand the world around them so they could make their own …show more content…
She does not just conform to what she is being told because someone who is in a position of power tells her to. She looks at Spanish as part of her identity, so when someone tells her to stop using it she feels insulted. If someone really wants to get at her “if [they] really want to hurt [her], talk badly about [her] language. Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity - [she is her] language. Until [she] can take pride in [her language], [she] cannot take pride in [herself] (8-9).” The fact that she was aware of all this as such an early age is great. If there were more people who could grasp this type of understanding society would not be looked at as just a herd of sheep. Anzaldua could have easily just stopped speaking Spanish and avoided all the hazing by the teachers. However she chose to stay true to not only to herself but to her
Social change is needed because as time progresses societies evolve and continue to meet those new needs. What might have been considered okay fifty years ago could be looked at as downright barbaric today.
James Baldwin, an iconic writer and civil rights leader, argued the same thing in his letter A Talk to Teachers. This piece of writing covers an array of topics including 1963 Harlem, where poor communities were being exploited and under resourced, and racism was being looked at as a norm. Baldwin urged teachers to teach students to be able to analyze and understand the world around them so they could make their own …show more content…
She does not just conform to what she is being told because someone who is in a position of power tells her to. She looks at Spanish as part of her identity, so when someone tells her to stop using it she feels insulted. If someone really wants to get at her “if [they] really want to hurt [her], talk badly about [her] language. Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity - [she is her] language. Until [she] can take pride in [her language], [she] cannot take pride in [herself] (8-9).” The fact that she was aware of all this as such an early age is great. If there were more people who could grasp this type of understanding society would not be looked at as just a herd of sheep. Anzaldua could have easily just stopped speaking Spanish and avoided all the hazing by the teachers. However she chose to stay true to not only to herself but to her