Anzaldua Blog Response

Dear Anzaldua,

After reading "How to Tame a Wild Tongue" I realized that a lot of the Chicana, Latina, and Mexican language is very different from each other. There is this little secret competition just to see who's more of what. I see it all over the school but its one of those things where people know it but wont say anything official of it. The slang that you added in this article also brought a lot of memories of me growing up. I started to smile and even laugh when you mentioned that Spanish speakers often leave out certain consonants when they appear between vowels.The worst word for me would definitely be "puchando" I'm not sure where I even developed that word but I used to say it as if that was the correct word to tell someone to stop pushing me. Until one day my friend corrected me and said its "empujando" not puchando; I was a bit embarrassed. Another word that I grew up hearing and saying was "tennis" for my shoes. My mother would always say "alsa tus tennis" to us, most Mexicans think of shoes, but that's just a lingo that Mexicans invented. Its not the actual word for shoes; zapatos. My shoes weren't tennis shoes so I don't know how that word came about. Another famous one I can think of is "chocomil" for hot chocolate. My family says that, but when you really think about it whats chocomil? This article took me back to memory lane when I spoke different Spanish growing back. It took me back to my roots and my family. Thank you Anzaldua for writing an article that relates to so many of us.