Quien tiene boca...HUh?

They say that a wild tongue is like fire hard to burn out, so how do you tame it?


I liked the way the author started the essay with a metaphor. The dentist was telling her that he was going to rip out her tongue because it was causing her problems with her teeth. The author uses this metaphor comparing it to language. The author tells us how when she was growing up she couldn't even speak spanish!!!! People were giving her wrong conceptions of things of how if she didnt speak proper english she wouldn't get a good job, it doesn't get any scarier than that!. I love the way she used spanished sayings like "Ahogadas, escupimos el oscuro. Peleando con nuestra propia sombra el silencio nos sepulta". ---- Drowning, spitting in the darkness. Fighting with our own shadow, silence buries us. What a saying!!!! If we keep quiet we are only buring ourselves in our own silence. That was a good one.


It's funny how I know exactly how she feels. Puertoricans and Mexicans speak different types of spanish, so when she talks abouts how Mexicans say the same thing whether it is a boy or girl wasn't really a surpirse. In some countries woman are not given importance, not even in language. Sometimes people confuse the wording and many times some words we say are like curse words in thier country!!! it's kinda funny how you gotta watch what you say when you go to certain latin countries because they might beat you for saying the wrong thing!!!
But anyways she is so totally right when she talks about the struggle of identity. It may sound wierd but even though we speak the same language we are not from the same place and if you tell a Dominican hey you look like your Puerto Rican they will get highly offended and vise versa. I think is the fact that people want to take pride in where they come from and thats why they act that way but she is so right when she says that the struggle for identity still remains.