Jackeline Aguirre
September 7, 2016
Professor Young
Engw1100 Writing Skills Workshop
What
Identity Means to You
My Culture
My
culture and my language are part of me; my language is part of my
identity. I was born here but I am
Colombian. I was raised in a Colombian
household full of empanadas, café, and arepas. I am who I am because I grew up
in a Hispanic home filled with orgullo and happiness.
I would be classified as an American speaking
Spanish but to me that is incorrect. As I am proud of being born in America,
that’s not who I am. I am a Hispanic who speaks Colombian; I say this because
it’s unique to me different from the other Spanish’s from different countries. “
A language which they can connect their identity to” (Anzalúa 247). My language to me means more than just words
or ways of communication it is my memory.
When I speak Colombian I speak the memories with my abuelito, the
memories with my father teaching me how to ride a horse where he grew up; that
is my language.
Gloria Anzaldúa in the essay “ How to Tame
a Wild Tongue” expresses the lost of her identity through her language which is
something a lot of us could relate too.
When I was younger in many occasions I have been told brutal confusing
words that no child should hear “This is America speak English!” As an eight-year-old
child I felt violated. Colombian Spanish is my language, I choose to speak
Spanish because it is me it is part of me. “Who is to say that robbing a people
of language is less violent than war?”(Anzaldúa
247). Being young I was robbed of my
sanctuary of the tranquility of my home, my culture my sense of right and
wrong. To me language and culture means everything it marks a journey of self; every detail of my personality and perspective is tied to what I know and who I am, my identity, my language, my purpose.In that moment I realized like Anzaldúa that each and every aspect of
ones identity like language and culture is one to stand for and firmly believe
in.
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