Colleen Johnson
Critical
Response 2
QS/WGSS 462
Loving in the War
Years: Lo Que Nunca Paso por Sus Labios by Cherríe Moraga, “History
of Disease” by Patti Duncan, and “Listening to ghosts: an alternative
(non)argument” by Malea Powell all discussed the complexities of connection to
language and a desire to reclaim language, as well as the struggle to reconcile
multiple competing identities. I found I could relate to both of these topics
on some level.
For
Moraga, the Spanish language was something she grew up speaking, but later lost
touch with. In an effort to reconnect with her Chicana identity, she put
emphasis on language and regaining her fluency. Moraga discussed how different
it felt to speak Spanish compared to English, and how it was comforting and
home to speak Spanish. This connection to language was also discussed by Duncan
was raised by a Korean-speaking mother, and learned to speak English with a
Korean accent even though she never spoke Korean. As such she always wished she
spoke Korean, as though that would somehow validate her identity. In a similar
way, Powell is a Native American who only spoke English while the language of
her ancestors is dying out.
Other than learning
some Spanish in school, I have only ever spoken English. But I think this piece
helped me understand the power of language, and one’s first language, as
something that connects one to their own personal history. I have a close
friend who lived in Austria during her very early years and whose first
language was German because of this. She told me once that she often felt this
disconnect with her own life experience because since her family moved back the
U.S. she lost all her German. I never really understood what she meant, I didn’t
get why she was so connected to German when she no longer spoke it, but I this
piece gave me insight into how important one’s history is and how important
language is to that history.
The complexity of
competing identities is something that I have much more experience with in
comparison. Moraga discussed the difficulty she had identifying as Chicana
while being a gay feminist activist, as well as the difficulty keeping her
Chicana identity while “looking white”. Duncan’s piece was about the disconnect
between her identity as Korean with her lack of the language, as well as her
identity as American when white people spoke down to her, or assumed she did
not understand English well. I also think she had competing identities in her
childhood when she was physically a very young, but was forced to mentally and
emotionally be an adult. Powell discussed the difficulty in reconciling her
identity as an academic with her identity as a Native American. She discussed
the feeling of being disloyal to her people by teaching at a university built
on the their burial grounds while participating in western theory and applying
the English language to her Indian history.
All three writers felt
they could not be both or all of their identities at the same time, they were
constantly feeling like they must pick a side. This is something I deeply
relate to as a person who is both bisexual and a practicing Catholic. I often
feel that in queer spaces I cannot be religious and in religious spaces I
cannot be queer. I think anyone who is part of a minority struggles with this
issue of competing identities and the way expressing one identity makes them
feel as though they are a traitor to the other. I often wonder if I am being
disloyal to the queer community by continuing in my Catholic faith since the
church still teaches against gay marriage, but I come from a long line of
Catholics and it is still a very important part of my own personal history. I
reconciled this by realizing that it is ok to not agree with all the teachings
of a religion. In fact if someone does, they probably are just blindly
following, and not actually thinking for themselves and forming their own
beliefs. Powell demonstrated the ability to reconcile competing identities as
well by acknowledging at the end that she can continue to write theory about
her people at the same time as she works to reclaim their language. Moraga was
also able reconcile her competing identities by reclaiming her Chicana identity
and relearning her language. Both these works showed me that it is ok to be
both, and it is important to accept yourself for who you are.
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