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Wild Tongue And Learning To Read By Frederick Douglass

1175 Words5 Pages

In How to Tame a Wild Tongue by Gloria Anzaldua and Learning to Read by Frederick Douglass, both authors tell a story about how society discriminated against their culture because of their identity. Anzaldua talks about her struggles as a Chicano (Mexican-American) and how she was discriminated for speaking the Chicano language in America. The Chicano language is a mixture of Spanish and English also referred to as Spanglish. Growing up and spending most of her life in the Rio Grande Valley of southern Texas where she considered herself to be inside what she calls the “borderlands”. The borderlands is the border between the United States and Mexico, but Anzaldua refers to them as “Borderlands also exist wherever different cultures, languages, …show more content…

While Douglass was young his mistress would give him lessons on how to read, but the mistress’s wife put it to a stop before Douglass could learn how to read. Even though Douglass wasn’t given any more lessons by his mistress, that didn’t prevent him from learning to read. When he was sent on errands by his mistress he would go out and complete them as fast as he could so that he could stop and talk to the local boys and get lessons from them. As Douglass grew and learned to read he came to the realization that the only reason his owner didn’t want him to learn how to read was so that he couldn’t come to understand that his life as a slave was unjust. Both Anzaldua and Douglass were discriminated against for their culture in which they were stripped of their identity which is unjust especially in a country that considers themselves to be the land of the …show more content…

Anzaldua said that she has been accused by many Latinos and Latinas of “ruining the Spanish language” (207). Many Latinos and Latinas consider speaking the Chicano language “a mutilation of Spanish” (Anzaldua 207). If you look at the Spanish language there is many different forms around the world, one example being the Spanish spoke in Spain is slightly different that the Spanish spoke in Mexico. Having many different words with the same meaning, different variations of slang words, and simply tenses of the same word being altered there are significant differences. Anzaldua lived in the United States and last time I checked the United States was an entirely different country than Mexico and Spain. Especially living in the United States of America which is considered to be one of the most diverse countries in the world where there are many different languages spoken by people who come from all over the world, having one more language spoken within our country shouldn’t be a

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777 Words | 4 Pages

Brown et al., states that the area’s close ties with Mexico due to “family, friends, media, and trade” dissipates the physical border between both countries as the area shares a unique culture (10). One of the strongest aspects of this culture is the fact that Spanish is the primary language in many communities and cities across Texas’s border region. As a matter of fact, some cities across this region have made Spanish part of the local government’s way of governing such as in El Cenizo, Texas. In 1999, the small Texas city declared Spanish as the official language of the town in order to get more people involved in local government, which caused serious controversy around the country (Gorov). Despite the fact the city of Laredo has never declared an official language, there is no doubt that many city services and processes are also communicated in Spanish due to the high prevalence of the language in the community.

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288 Words | 2 Pages

In the article, “Learning to Read and Write” by Frederick Douglass, he achieved to learn how to read and write in the time of slavery in Maryland. At a young age he learned how to be literate. But then he was a slave that not only thought about being free but wanted to learn how to read and write. His mistress only helped him to learn the alphabet, but he was also accused of reading, so she never trusted him to be near a newspaper, book or anything that had to do with reading. Sometimes he would get sent to run errands and he tries to finish it fast so he can read a part in a book that he found or get some lessons.

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548 Words | 3 Pages

Paper Two Fredrick Douglass’ essay “Learning to Read and Write” narrated how he accomplished to teach himself how to read and write. Maneuvering through many obstacles, he managed to use his advantages to learn. He talks about his struggles and the hard ships he went through at a young age to lead him to where he is now. I agree with Douglass’ main point in the essay being how hard it was for him to learn. He gives clear examples of how being a slave and wanting to learn was very hard back in them 1800’s.

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350 Words | 2 Pages

In “Learning to Read,” by Frederick Douglass, he lets us know how he learned to write and read. He had to overcome trouble in order to learn. He would read and write while no one would be watching him. Douglass was not allowed to read or write anything while being in the house. His mistress would get mad if she caught him doing so.

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482 Words | 2 Pages

Frederick Douglass wrote “Learning to Read and Write” to explain the many dangers of his life as a slave and how he eventually learned to read and write through his mistress and the many people he met in the South. Douglass evolves into an educated man early in his life as his writing is evident to show his maturing either by his language and syntax. Douglass writes his piece about a hurtful topic in a light hearted manner that shows his determination in becoming free, but without reaching the bitter and painful side of his early life as a slave. The usage of anecdotal passages throughout the piece allows it to be read by a wide variety of audiences as Douglass purposely did not choose to include the harsh treatment and abuse as a slave but rather just say that life was hard.

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568 Words | 3 Pages

“If you want to be American, speak ‘American.’ If you don’t like it, go back to Mexico where you belong.” Because of people like this a lot of Latinos struggle with assimilation. Assimilation is when you try to adapt to another culture and language. How difficult do you think that is?

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285 Words | 2 Pages

Language is the basic verbal expression of culture. Language is so abstract, yet people manage to say a lot with mere words. The structure of language helps determine how one is likely to view the world and it determines how people think. An illiterate does not have the ability to construct abstract thoughts until it has had some academic experience. The way in which they go about learning wholly depends on their culture.

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589 Words | 3 Pages

It wasn’t correct for Douglass to be taught how to read because he was a slave and slaves were not supposed to have any education. Douglass didn’t know how it felt to have no freedom and white children told him how it felt to have freedom. Slaves weren’t supposed to have books, but nobody knew Douglass had a book and his master didn’t know Douglass knew how to read. When Douglass is growing up, he thinks of when was freedom ever going to end. He didn’t want to live as a slave for the rest of his life, he wanted to have freedom as the white people did.

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211 Words | 1 Pages

Learning to Read and Write Frederick Douglass (1817 – 1895) was an author, of ‘Learning to Read and Write’. On his autobiographical essay he narrates how he was able to read and write. The author was one of the many Africans brought to become a slave for life and lived for purpose of his masters. The article talks about slavery of ignorance he had that he was not able to read and write. He also explains that, his mistress once was kind and tender hearted woman and thought him to read alphabets, by the influence her husband how she became stone hearted painful woman (248).

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592 Words | 3 Pages

After reading Frederick Douglass’s essay “How I Learned to Read and Write”, I found that it is a difficult read as it involves a lot of perplexing and unfamiliar language style. I had to take notes and highlight certain phrases and fragments in order to understand his life story about reading. At the beginning, it was challenging to understand the idea he was suggesting – how his struggle to read lead him to a new world for him and changed his perspective about slavery. However, in the end, the essay is almost self-explanatory as it concludes that he managed to learn how to write, enables him to communicate better. One of the biggest difficulties I had when reading this paper was due to the confusing language and metaphors that leads to the

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498 Words | 2 Pages

According to Mistress Hugh, “education and slavery were incompatible with each other” (Douglass, 33). Although Mistress Hugh had stopped teaching Douglass how to read, the seed of knowledge had already been planted. In the years that followed, his hunger for knowledge did not dissipate. Douglass devised various methods to learn to read and write in very clever ways.

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1231 Words | 5 Pages

Borderlands, by Gloria Anzaldua, has a connection between all of us. As for knowing part of our past, present, future can be related to most of her writing in many ways. Always having a sense of doubt can become consuming. As of growing up in with four older brothers and two parents, I was the baby of the house. Pretty much not questioning anything as to why it was not possible to do certain jobs around the house.

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683 Words | 3 Pages

Fredrick Douglass: Positives and Negatives of His Education During the times of slavery, teaching an African American how to read or write was extremely disapproved, and even against the law. Although it was so, many slaves found ways to educate themselves and learn the skills of reading and writing. In the book, The Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, education is a tremendous underlying theme.

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269 Words | 2 Pages

Mrs. Auld, who was not familiar with having a slave, teaches Douglass how to read and later is found out by Mr. Auld. Although the learning didn’t proceed, he realizes the importance of reading when he overhears Mr. Auld informs Mrs. Auld about the consequences of teaching a slave how to read and even illegal to do so. However, this marks the beginning of self-learning. At the young

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1673 Words | 7 Pages

However, literacy turns out to be not only bliss, but also painful. Indeed, while learning to read Frederick becomes more and more aware of the injustices of slavery, and this leads him to regret this knowledge “Learning how to read had become a curse rather than a blessing” ( Douglass ) . Douglass believes in the importance of education. He thinks that education is a key part to our life; it is the only way to get freedom. Literacy is very powerful because it can set anyone free to pursue dreams.

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