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How does language reflects your identity essay
How do language reflect your identity
How do language reflect your identity
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Night and Manzanar Essay Adversity; difficulties and misfortune one might have. Adversity is apart of everyone’s daily lives, it is something that cannot truly be prevented. Two characters from two seperate books, Night by Elie Wiesel and Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki, had many difficulties and obstacles in their way, but they survived. The book Night, by Elie Wiesel is about a young boy named Elie separated from his family during the Holocaust.
Since America’s declaration of independence on July 4, 1776, America has continually dealt with racism and religious intolerance. Racism and religious tolerance is around However, how many of the people “native” to the United States views towards different races or groups of people has changed. Another thing that is important to note the importance of immigration patterns on which groups were targeted by racist individuals occurred at different time periods. The Catholics were viewed negatively during the founding of the country, but were virtually ignored when there was an influx in immigration of Eastern Europeans and Asians. The minorities in the United States were viewed as nuisances that needed to removed.
Foreigners make up one quarter of the U.S. population (U.S. Immigration Statistics). In other words, 81,281,909 people are left struggling to find a community in which they belong. As a result, cliques are created based off similar beliefs and languages. However, there are measures a person can take in order to become accepted into a particular group that they might otherwise not belong in. Manipulating language is one resource that can be used to blend into a desired community.
Broken in WWII The Holocaust and WWII was a time when many people were blinded from what was actually happening in the world around them. Sadly this was not true for millions of jewish people, and non german citizens. When Elie Wiesel an Auschwitz survivor wrote his memoir Night he was pulling from parts of his life where he was very vulnerable and broken.
Richard Rodriguez and Gloria Anzaldúa are two authors who both immigrated to America in the 1950s and received first hand experience of the assimilation process into American society. During this time, Rodriguez and Anzaldúa had struggled adjusting to the school system. Since understanding English was difficult, it made adjusting to the American school system increasingly difficult for Rodriguez. Whereas Anzaldúa, on the other hand, had trouble adjusting to America’s school system due to the fact that she didn’t wish to stop speaking Spanish even though she could speak English. Both Rodriguez and Anzaldúa had points in their growing educational lives where they had to remain silent since the people around them weren’t interested in hearing them speaking any other language than English.
The power of language We all have some form of language limitations, no matter where we come from and what our background is. “Mother tongue” by Amy Tan and “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” by Gloria Anzaldua both share similar themes in their stories that demonstrate how they both deal with how different forms of the same language are portrayed in society. In both stories they speak about what society declares the right way of speech and having to face prejudgment, the two authors share their personal experiences of how they’ve dealt with it.
Extended out to most children is the hand of a parent offering a warm hug along with warnings of danger to their children. This is what any fit parent would do. However this is not always the case with all parents. For example in the memoir The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, Rose Mary and Rex Walls are not fit to be parents because they don’t give their children what they need and have an unstable relationship. Jeannette and her siblings live off of what their parents can afford when they have sufficient money but they don’t use it to give them what they need.
Immersing oneself in a new community can come with difficulties such as language barriers and balancing two different identities. Firoozeh may have decided to add a “simpler” name, but had to deal with the emotional turmoil that came with people not knowing her actual Iranian heritage. Firoozeh also had to help her mother adapt to American culture by translating because her mother could not speak English. Firoozeh’s father had to adapt to the language barriers because his version of English was incomprehensible to the average American. Every single member of Firoozeh’s family had to adapt to American culture by giving up parts of their original identity because they had to make a place for themselves in their newfound
Throughout generations cultural traditions have been passed down, alongside these traditions came language. The language of ancestors, which soon began to be molded by the tongue of newer generations, was inherited. Though language is an everlasting changing part of the world, it is a representation of one’s identity, not only in a cultural way but from an environmental standpoint as well. One’s identity is revealed through language from an environmental point of view because the world that one is surrounded with can cause them to have their own definitions of words, an accent, etc. With newer generations, comes newer forms of languages.
“The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named María” by Judith Ortiz Cofer and “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan depict the endeavors people take on in an attempt to integrate into society. Cofer demonstrates how stereotypes of Latina women have led others to misjudge her and explains the difficulty she had disassociating herself from those stereotypes. Tan demonstrates that the “broken” English her mother speaks has led others to think less of her and disregard her. One’s appearance instantaneously causes others to judge them. For some it is easier to blend in and be accepted by their community, but what is it that keeps some people from assimilating, and what effect does their otherness have on them?
Assimilation is usually meant to indicate what happens to immigrants in a new land. However, “rejection, loneliness, discrimination—these were the byproducts of living in the United States” (Ghymn 37). In Marilyn Chin’s essay on assimilation “How I Got That Name,” the speaker acquaints the readers how she got the American name “Marilyn.” The tension between the two cultures is evident, for the speaker is treated as “Model Minority.” Her race and ethnicity define her; in fact, the stereotypes inscribed with her race restricted and cage her significance in the society.
She wants to feel no pressure or fear when talking in her language to the world, to embrace it. Seeing how all of her explanations in her essay show a strong relationship between language and identity. The way we interact with one another is through language. When you hear someone talking you can get a good grasp as to who they are by paying attention to a few things like how fast they speak, the annunciation of certain words, the rise and fall of their pitch, and the tone throughout the conversation. After hearing the person talk you have a strong feeling of who they are because of what you heard, the language you heard.
Our identity is a place upon many attributes of a human being. Whether the person is someone who goes on promoting themselves to the world or not, and it shows how people communicate to others around them. Language is one of the main components that unveils the person’s identity in their everyday life, and they are many different ways to approach a person’s language. Relating to the article of Yiyun Li, “To Speak is to Blunder,” she knows two languages that has its positive and negative outcomes in her life. I to relate to her understanding of language, but a different view of what language means to me.
Language is a system of communication consisting of sounds, words and grammar, or the system of communication used by the people of a particular country or profession. Even animals communicate. Birds use sound and movement to transfer information. Likewise human beings use sound and movement like speech and gesture to communicate. Language is the fundamental factor leading and affecting communication.
Language is an important part of our life. Language and communication cannot separate. People use the language as a means of communication to express their ideas and feelings. They communicate either with each other using language in every social interaction; communicate with others directly or indirectly in the spoken and written form. Therefore, language is an important thing of communication in social life.
