Gloria Anzaldua : How to Tame a Wild Tongue
1. List the different kinds of languages Anzaldua says she speaks and organize them according to a principle of your own selection. Explain that principle and what the list it produces tells us about the Chicano/a experience with language.
2. How does Anzaldua use definition to discuss her experience with language and to what effect?
3. Connections: Compare Anzaldua’s sense of herself as an American to Audre Lorde’s in “The Fourth of July” (p.239). In what way does each woman feel American? In what way does each not?
4. In her discussion of moving back and forth between the varieties of languages she speaks, Anzaldua uses the term “switch codes” (par. 27). Define that term and write about situations in your life in which you switch codes.
