Language strongly influences all other ways of knowing, language, along with emotion, perception and reason is a way of knowing different areas of knowledge by the human brain. Major areas of knowledge include natural sciences, human sciences, history, the arts, ethics and mathematics. It is this authority of language that often shapes and manipulates the identity of a subject. Adam Phillip’s essay Houdini’s Box and Richard Rodriguez’s essay The Achievement of Desire show how ones actions and behavior make up ones identity. In various cultures around the world, it is these different ways of knowing that make up one’s identity as evidenced by the quote from Gloria Anzaldua How to Tame a Wild Tongue: “There are more subtle ways that we internalize identification, especially in the forms of images and emotions.” There are numerous languages in the world each with its own corresponding culture as there are people from different backgrounds with different identities using various different languages. Languages are not limited to being in words, there can be many different forms of language—it is merely a means to express oneself. This mode of communication or learning can be through physical gestures/signs, eye contact, the level of understanding of one another and through subtle yet profound actions.
“Language—both code and content—is a complicated dance between internal and external interpretations of our identity. Within each community of practice, defined by Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (1999, p. 185) as groups “whose joint engagement in some activity of enterprise is sufficiently intensive to give rise over time to a repertoire of shared practices,” certain linguistic (among other) practices are understood by the members to be more appropriate than others. While monolingual speakers are restricted to altering the content and register of their speech, bilingual speakers are able to alter the code, as well as content and register, of their language dependent upon the situation.”(Bucholtz 1999)
Language, in its written form, originally started off as pictures or symbols. There is a sector of the human brain which is dedicated to expression and communication. (World Science) The world’s first exposure to a newborn child is almost always in the form of feeling or sight and written/spoken language comes as a means of relating to records of sight or memory and a means of expressing him/herself efficiently. This is where language is associated with other ways of knowing, e.g. the word ‘good’ is linked to a general feeling of pleasure and satisfaction which is why, upon careful observation it ‘appears’ better and appeasing to the eye as compared to a word with a negative connotation such as its antonym ‘bad’ which is often associated with displeasure or decay. The American linguist Benjamin Whorf argues that “Every language is a vast pattern-system, different from others, [and that] a person analyzes nature, notices or neglects types of relationship and phenomena, channels his reasoning, and builds the house of his consciousness.” Whorf also argues that Eskimos have 200 words for snow, indicating that they think differently about the substance than do, say, English-speakers.(Sterling 74-75) These examples show how language invokes feelings (influencing emotion) and gives an impression (influencing perception). Thus language has manipulated and contorted the identity of a subject.
In Richard Rodriguez’s essay The Achievement of Desire it can be seen how the author, realizes this power of language “[by] extraordinary determination and the great assistance of others—at home and at school” (Rodriguez 565) and through strong motivation and strife to overcome his lowly background and equalize or sometimes even challenge the authority of the perceived elite in the society—the ‘gringos’ “[My mother,] pushing back the hair from my forehead, she whispered that I had “shown” the gringos” (568). After gaining pride and social acceptance and getting as close to the perfect ‘elite’ as possible, Rodriguez starts to shun and detest his background as it immediately comes into conflict with his newfound identity and he vents this anger out on anyone that proves to be an obstacle to his continuance to this path of excellence. This is perfectly illustrated by his writing:
“Your parents must be very proud of you.” People began to say that to me about the time I was in sixth grade. To answer affirmatively, I’d smile. Shyly I’d smile, never betraying my sense of irony. I was not proud of my mother and father. I was embarrassed by their lack of education. It was not that I ever thought they were stupid, thought stupidly I took for granted their enormous native intelligence. Simply, what mattered to me was that they were not like my teachers.” (Rodriguez 568)
As evidenced by the above quote, it can be noticed how Rodriguez is ‘afraid’ and embarrassed of his background and ignores what his parents have to offer to him as he has found himself a new identity among his academics which his background (lack of parental education) comes into direct conflict with.
Rodriguez tries to get away from his past by creating himself a new identity, much like Harry Houdini in Adam Phillips’ Houdini’s Box where Harry Houdini, the child of a failed rabbi and a part of the Jewish exodus from Hungary in 1887, changes his name to the former from his original Erik Weisz out of embarrassment of his father’s past and the fear of boycott from the new community and changes his identity as a whole by his behavior and magical acts. “He would devote his life to the performance of a violent parody of assimilation. He would be the man who could adapt to anything and escape from it.” (Phillips 490) The most plausible reason for Houdini’s choice of a public career would be his craving for social acceptance and by shocking the audience with death defying acts and earning their attention which in turn satisfied Houdini’s desire of recognition. This form of behavior, known as escapism is exhibited in both Houdini and Rodriguez’s case. Escapism is “the avoidance of reality by absorption of the mind in entertainment or in an imaginative situation, activity, etc.” (“Escapism.” Dictionary.com) Both authors ‘escape’ from their origin by adopting or borrowing an alien method thus losing their original identity by conforming to another culture’s practices or by employing or presenting one selves in ways that get them the attention and acceptance they seek. This escapism then forms a pattern of cyclical behavior in both cases which in turn becomes their identity. Thus both of them create an identity for themselves by their ‘language’ in the form of actions.
This sort of escapist behavior is prevalent even among modern youths. Kids who feel that they have been alienated or isolated for their normal behaviors sometimes find themselves detached from the world and embarrassed for what they are. The reason for this can be anything from ones looks, their origin/background or spoken language. Some resort to self harm and pain to earn people’s sympathy and recognition while others seek attention and acceptance by behaving in a way significantly different from the others, in a constructive or destructive way, which can sometimes result in endangering public safety such as the Columbine high school massacre of 1999. Phillips confirms this in his essay by using the example of the sexually abused youth. The girl, who is trying her best to communicate her feelings to the world but due to her age, she finds herself unable to do so, to accomplish this, she employs the only technique she knows—through the game of hide and seek. These actions make up her identity as her hiding place is the only sanctuary in her opinion where she still deems herself secure from worldly atrocities as she thinks that no one can harm her without dying first. This is illustrated by the quote: “Will it be dangerous when I find you...You’ll die, she replies. Then there’s a pause, and she says in her most world weary voice, “I give up” (Phillips 487)
Anzaldua, on the other hand while on a seemingly contradictory route from Rodriguez, discusses and shows the pride she feels for being who she is and how the world tries to change her but she only responds by being adamant. Anzaldua writes about a borderland. This borderland is what she explains as where two or more cultures meet with each other. Two essays in which she wrote are Entering into the Serpent and How to Tame a Wild Tongue. Both of these essays are written in English and Spanish, making it difficult for some to understand. She does this to show people what it was like to not understand. Anzaldua discusses her experiences growing up between many cultures. As a woman of many identities, she has suffered oppression because of who and what she represents in an American culture that is threatened by anyone who is not of white color.(William, Barry et al)
Anzaldua also clarifies many of the languages that she uses, elaborating on many of those and showing how she often speaks a lot of these languages among various different groups of people, e.g., she speaks five out of the eight that she mentions with her siblings (77-78). She explains the embarrassment felt by many Chicanos because what they speak is neither close enough to English nor close enough to Spanish, and how the main reason for hostility between many Chicanos is because of the language they use, “vying to be the ‘real’ Chicanas, to speak like Chicanas. There is no one Chicano language, just as there is no one Chicano experience” (80).
One reason for this intercultural hostility as described by Barbara Wison in Sterling’s essay is “A person in an alien culture often feels lost and desperate. The communicative behavior, traditional for his/her own culture, is no longer effective enough. This does not only happen to people with poor knowledge of a foreign language, but also to those who have mastered it, but are unfamiliar with the norms of functioning in a different culture.”(Sterling 2)
This shows that merely knowing a foreign language is inadequate for genuine intercultural proficiency. People using a language foreign to them experience an identity crisis. They often face problems with the tone of communication, expressing one’s own individuality through the foreign language and what cultural elements to forgo while retaining ones identity.
This kind of an identity may not have correspondence with a particular culture but it is also not estranged from it, as it survives on the borderland amid different cultures. "Multiculturally oriented persons appear to operate within what might be called a third-culture perspective," (Bucholtz 5), which takes the form of "patterns generic to the intersections of societies" (Useem et al. 1963: 169). "Such a perspective is characterized by an openness to change, empathy, the ability to perceive differences accurately, lower ethnocentricity, and ability to establish meaningful relations with 'strangers'”
Anzaldua talks about many different Hispanic cultures, for instance she mentions working class and Standard English as the languages taught to her in school and from the public. In ‘Entering into the Serpent’ Anzaldua elaborately describes her culture and what it means to her. She describes the coercion she faces from her own people to live a life in a state of division. Here, her most comfortable method of speaking is using Chicano Spanish, which is accepted by neither the white elitists nor her Spanish culture and after trying to conform to white man’s customs she is labeled as a ‘pocho’(82) or a cultural traitor.
The interesting phenomenon displayed here is that America in itself doesn’t really have a truly ‘common’ language. The acceptance of diversity in cultures and the freedom given to all is the main reason why many immigrants come and settle here. Anzaldua can be seen making a connection here with her identity and the various languages she uses. The Chicano population is frowned upon by their neighboring peoples. Americans are dissatisfied and angered at the fact that they do not use their ‘common’ language of English “If you want to be American, speak ‘American.” (77) and the Spanish people are displeased at the fact that the Chicanos don’t speak their traditional Spanish. Tying back to freedom given in America, which includes freedom of speech, where no authority figure can say that English and only English is the sole language that should be spoken. Anzaldua examines the origins of some of the different languages she speaks, and in doing so she reveals the processes of transculturation that helped to shape them.
As evidenced by the discussion and analysis of the three authors, it is made clear that language—be it spoken, written or physical does have a very strong influence on all other ways of knowing, especially one’s identity. Phillips and Rodriguez, through the examples of Houdini and himself respectively, show how one’s own actions, thoughts, emotions and perception are manipulated and shaped according to their newfound identity, and by the example of the anonymous youth in Phillip’s essay the author shows how the girl tries to express her identity and her feelings through the only means of communication available to her. Anzaldua’s example of the Chicanos shows how their identity and how they are perceived by other people is in direct correspondence to their spoken language. While Anzaldua takes pride in her background, Rodriguez and Houdini do not and try to change their environment to make their identity.
