Jacob Quanbeck

English III

02/17/2014

Ms. Fordahl

Borderlands

    Recently in our English class we’ve been covering different aspects of American Literature, this past week we were exploring borderlands. We watched a PBS video, like we did with the last topic, and read “How to Tame Wild Tongues” by Gloria Anzaldua. In the video and the story we learn about different cultures. One thing that was intertwined not only with not only the video and the story, but also in borderlands is language. Let’s find out more about how language is involved in all 3 of these!

    I’m pretty sure that we can all agree that language is pretty important right? I mean it is the way that we communicate with each other in our daily lives after all. Alright so language is pretty essential for most of us in our day to day lives. What about when your language differs from the language of others? Sometimes this can create conflict between cultures, like the Chicanos who are of Mexican American descent and wish to speak Spanish which others don’t like because they can’t understand them, or it can create confusion for those who are descendants of multiple cultures, such as the Mestizos who are people of mixed Indian, European, and African descent.

    In Gloria Anzaldua’s“How to Tame Wild Tongues” we see how language and culture differ in different countries. Gloria describes how she was treated differently for speaking Spanish, “...being caught speaking Spanish at recess-that was good for three licks on the knuckles with a sharp ruler.” Gloria was able to speak english but it was “like a Mexican” so it was broken english. Gloria’s parents wanted her to speak English like ajn American. This sort of thing is why the borderlands of the US and Mexico are so different.

    In the PBS video we learned about borderlands and the way that the different cultures and traditions overlap. The video also went over conquistadors who were spanish explorers and soldiers that were the first ones to settle in Mexico, they were vital to the current culture and language that exists currently in Mexico. The people talked about how it was hard for them to move to a new country, America, from their homeland.

    So in conclusion language is extremely important to different cultures. Over the course of this unit we saw just how important language is to these different cultures and the people from these cultures. While having an official language for everybody to speak is extremely beneficial, since people can understand each other, forcing people to give up on that part of their culture isn’t right. The United States not having an official language really just enforces the idea of it being a melting pot where people of different countries and cultures can coexist.

Jacob Quanbeck

English III

02/05/2014

Ms. Fordahl

Native Voices

We learned about Native Americans their beliefs, and their special places over the last couple weeks. We went over “The Way to Rainy Mountain” by N. Scott Momaday. Another story we went over was “Saint Marie” by Louise Erdrich. We also watched the video series “American Passages: A Literary Survey” by Prairie Public Broadcasting. One theme that is consistent through not only these stories but Native American culture in general is special places. Let’s find out a bit more about these places…

Special places can be anywhere that is special to you for any particular reason(s). A special place could be where you grew up in, like “the bush”. Special places could be a place you wish to be, like the church in “Saint Marie”. It could be a place that was important to your ancestors like in “The Way to Rainy Mountain”. All of these places can be considered special to you or somebody else.

In “The Way to Rainy Mountain” Momaday describes the land that was special to the Kiowa which he finds out more about after his grandmother’s death. Devil’s Tower is a place that is described in this story. Momaday describes this place as being “...upthrust against the gray sky as if in birth of time the core of the earth had broken through its crust…”. The Kiowa had a legend about how Devil’s tower came about. The story goes that there were eight children that were playing, seven sisters and one brother, the only boy was struck dumb and transformed into a bear. The sisters had ran away, terrified of this bear, they climbed up to the stump of a great tree and the tree spoke to them, telling them to climb unto it and as they did it began to grow. The bear had come to kill them, but the sisters were too high, so he started scratching at the bark with his claws. The sisters became the stars of the Big Dipper and he became the Devil’s Tower.

In “The Saint Marie” the main character is from the rez, or “The Bush” as she calls it. She grew up there and though it was special to her, she wanted something more. She went to the church which is pretty much the place they send the crazy nuns. The nuns looked down on the girl and the rest of “The Bush” which made this girl want to become one and be praised by these nuns. After meeting sister Leopolda, a crazy nun that thought the devil was in the girl. She did many things to torture “the devil” out of this little girl, from pouring boiling water down her back to making her burn herself on the stove, this caused the girl to realise how bad an idea this was, so the church really was only a false special place for her.

I personally have places that are special to me, like most other people. One of these places would be this spot, a camp if you will, in Park River that I used to go to as a kid. I would go there with my brother for a day camp every summer until I was old enough to stay the whole week. I met a lot of friends there and went there until fairly recently, when I got too old to continue going, though I might be a counselor there this summer.