In Anzaldúa’s writing, the main themes tackle what it is like to speak a language that is the

product of influence from two cultures; as well as how her language, culture, and gender has
allowed people to oppress or persecute her. From these themes, she creates a commentary on
identity and how it is strained, controlled, and never truly free from ridicule and embarrassment.

When she talks about the different languages she speaks, she talks about how she feels most
connected to Tex-Mex and Chicano Spanish. These languages are both languages that tie English
and Spanish together, and weave this cultural web that is connected to the influence that both
cultures have had on people. But from this, she, and others, also find immense pressure. She
wouldn’t speak Spanish to people not from her region unless she was speaking Mexican Spanish,
her brother married a woman from Mexico so he similarly will not mix English with Spanish the
way he does in his mother tongues, and Anzaldúa even talks about how Chicana feminists speak
English around each other, and attempt to ignore their Chicana heritage because it makes them
feel ashamed as they are told by Latinas that their language is a disgrace. Her identity, and the
identity of many Chicanas and Chicanos are product of living in a borderland. From the south
she feels immense pressure to be Mexican, and from the north she feels this pressure to become
culturally white and abandon her previous culture in order to blend in and do well financially and
socially.

Anzaldúa also speaks about how her language, along with her culture and gender work together
in a way that allow people to single her out. Being a Chicana, she was told that she should keep
her mouth shut so that flies wouldn’t enter, or that well bred girls don’t have big mouths. In this
way, even within her culture she is oppressed as a woman because she is not supposed to speak,
even though she notices men are never held to this standard. She was not only silenced because
of her gender, but also because of her language. She was told to not speak Spanish in order to be
American and do well in America, even having this pressure on her from her mother. On the
flipside, she felt unable to speak Chicano Spanish around Latinos and Latinas due to the
embarrassment or silence of her disgraceful language. Looking at these different examples, it is
obvious that Anzaldúa is oppressed and silenced in different ways through intersectionality. This,
I believe, is an overarching theme of the writing. She speaks of all the different ways she is
silenced- her physical tongue (in speaking), her mother tongue (Chicano Spanish, Tex-Mex), and
how the border she lived near caused this pressure that silenced parts of her culture, which in
turn was a source of criticism through other Mexicans or Latinos. Her tongue has been silenced,
and from what she wrote about, her tongue must persevere, be strong, and fight to not be
silenced.