Anzaldua Essay

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Anzaldua Inquiry The text written by Anzaldua is a patchwork, “an assemblage, a montage, a beaded work, … a crazy dance.” To create this medley, Anzaldua uses a variety of culture-specific language, literature, and references. Throughout the whole piece she switches the language between a mixture of English and Chicano Spanish. When speaking about what her native tongue is, Anzaldua refers to the corridos that were popular, such as the ones about John F. Kennedy and his death; she tells how it was frowned upon to like the ethnic music, but she enjoyed the corridos very much. These reflect the dual cultural structures interlocking into one. Through stories, Anzaldua establishes herself as an outsider. All of these tools and writing techniques assist Anzaldua in creating a reader/way of reading. I think that Anzaldua’s ideal reader is an American college student with a malleable mind willing to soak up all of her ideas. Anzaldua wants to put the reader in her shoes of being a minority in the United States. She does this by using Spanish words that people may not understand and by using an unorganized, random structure to confuse the reader. It is clear that Anzaldua was strongly against assimilating into American culture and becoming Americanized; she wants to keep the Chicano culture alive. Her parents, however, wanted her to do things the American way so that she could pursue the American Dream and make something of herself; therefore her parents often scolded her for speaking Spanish in school. Anzaldua’s ideal reader needs to be able to sympathize with her and to have an open mind. In order to make the reader meet these qualifications, Anzaldua tries to confuse and frustrate the reader by using language that is difficult to understand in the form of excerpts from poems, a muddled structure, and confusing

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