Btapia La chicana

Briana Tapia

La Chicana

When I read the Audre Lorde essay about The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master’s House I felt like she was disappointed and wanted change. This essay was about Audre Lord being picked to comment on some papers that discussed the “differences of American women race, sexuality, class, and age” as stated on the book (Moraga & Anzaldúa, 2015, pg.94). While being in the Humanities Conference Audre started to notice that her point in being there wasn’t right because in some of the papers given to her to comment on, she felt like she couldn’t say anything about it because she didn’t relate to that subject in particular ”… model of nurturing which totally dismissed my knowledge as a black lesbian” (Moraga & Anzaldúa, 2015, pg.94). She discussed about how she noticed that there was only two women and her in there commenting on the papers. Two of the women were picked last minute. Audre questioned how they could have taken their comments of each women as a final say without asking other woman. Audre felt that was very unprofessional and that showed the lack of research on their part. That’s when she understood that things don’t really change or if they do the change is very minimal. For many years the Men have let us think we have won by making small changes for women, but if we want to make a change and fight for equality, we must stop using our differences as excuses for parting us away and must from unity ”They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change” (Moraga & Anzaldúa, 2015, pg.95). We must let out fears go, in order to finally start understanding our differences and be able to come together in order to make positive changes in life. This is the only way we will beat the Master’s house and break fee.

The way I connect to the message of the passage of And When You Leave, Take Your Pictures With You  is that I feel that other white woman  see me as if I’m uneducated, a person that has no goals in life  that will end up with lots of children and living off of food stamps and housing. Living in the city where the majority are Hispanics, I still feel judged by white people and sometimes by my own race. Also, our own raza can judge us the hardest. We women are so easy to judge one another without even knowing what each of us is really going through. “…but all of us are born into an environment where racism exists” (Moraga & Anzaldúa, 2015, pg.58). I am a young single mother living on welfare, working part time being paid minimum, and going to school. I feel like I am being judged every time I renew these welfare services. The gestures some of the employees make, makes me feel like they think of me that I am a person trying to take advantage of the system for the rest of my life. They don’t know I don’t plan to live off the government services for the rest of my life. This is just while I get my life together in order to have a better future for my child. I wish I didn’t have to go through this but how the book say’s “but you work with what you have, whatever your skin color” (Moraga & Anzaldúa, 2015, pg.58). I keep telling myself I’m not the first nor the last woman going through some of these struggles.  I feel like just because I’m Hispanic I must prove these racist people that just because I’m struggling right now doesn’t mean I’m less of a person for asking for government help.  Even if we fear reality or change, we all need to see the full colorful picture not just black and white (whatever we just want to see) for all of us to understand and be able to make a bigger change.

             

 How I believe that Audre Lorde connect to Chapter 5 from the book Borderlands is that in both stories talks about how both African American women and Chicanas/Mexican American women  we were all raised not to question why certain things must be followed   “As women we have been taught to either ignore our differences or view them as causes for separation…” (Moraga & Anzaldúa, 2015, pg.95). Also not talking back to others "Boca cerrada no entran moscas." (Anzaldúa, 1987, Pg.76)”, we had to hide our emotions, personal opinions, facts, and just go with what the white people had to say and must follow the rules in order to fit with this country. Woman were constantly reminded that white people were superior than them.  Another good point to compare is how white people would dehumanized African Americans and Hispanics/Chicanos verbally ,physical punishment, etc. On the first page of Ch.5 talks about how a child was caught speaking Spanish and he got smacked in the on the knuckles with a ruler. He was also punished for trying to explain something to the teacher and she got mad, she took it as if he were talking back. She also told the student “If you want to be American, speak American. If you don’t like it, go back to Mexico where you belong” (Anzaldúa, 1987 Pg.75).  For the book The Bridge Called My Back on page 91, where Audre Lorde felt offended by what Marry wrote or published. Audre Lord felt like her voice and the voice of her African American community was seen in negative perspective/meaning as she states to Mary “What you excluded from Gyn/Ecology dismissed my heritage and the heritage of all other non-european women... I felt that you had in fact misused my words, utilized them only to testify against myself as a woman of color” (Moraga & Anzaldúa, 2015, pg.91)

 The way both books relate to language is to speak out. We must fight for our voices to be heard and our stories to be written and be read. To have more variety of stories not just white people’s stories.” Until I have pride in my language, I cannot have cannot take pride in myself…until I am free to write bilingual and to switch codes without having always to translate…I will no longer be made to feel ashamed of existing. I will have my voice… (Anzaldúa 1987, pg.81). As for Audre Lorde I think that she is trying to tell Marry on “An open Letter to Marry Daly” that the way people right or say things might have a different impact of what others are trying to understand “When I speak of knowledge I am speaking of that dark and true depth which understanding serves,…accessible though language to ourselves and others ” Moraga & Anzaldúa, 2015, pg.91) . How both books connect is that we should be proud of our roots and to be able to understand and have empathy towards one another and to be able to accept each other differences. To be able to grow and try not to commit the same mistakes as passed generations did.  

Citations:

Anzaldúa Gloria. (1987). Borderlands -: La frontera. San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute Books.

Moraga Cherríe, & Anzaldúa Gloria. (2015). This bridge called my back: writings by radical women of color. Albany: State University of New York Press.