Category: Unit 1

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On Language

Issa Serrano

The LGBT+ community encompasses a large variety of people that do not fit the heteronormative or “normal” mold. It is a term that incorporates people of all sexualities and genders that are not straight or cis-gendered. It is a subculture that has faced scrutiny and ridicule, however in the face of such discriminatory actions we have created a space that’s main ideals are those of equality and acceptance. One that values kindness amongst us and allows everyone to have to freedom to be who they are. With our shared perspective we have created a language that reflects those beliefs, promotes unity, allows us to recognize each other, even when in a setting that isn’t necessarily queer. It generates a comradery that allows us to combat the hatred and discrimination that we face every day.

The LGBT+ community has its own set of vocabulary that is meant to keep out the bigots who do not accept us as part of society. In our attempts to combat prejudice, we reclaim words that have harmful meanings. The queer community is not the first to do this, as the African American community has done it as the Latino community. The Latino community specifically, created a whole language dedicated to the revolt of their oppressors called pachuco. The prevalent Latina activist, Gloria Anzaldua states in her essay “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, “Pachuco is a language… of rebellion, both against Standard Spanish and Standard English” (35). This is not a new concept, and every minority community uses and creates a language that is meant as an insurrection against those who cause them harm. Both to keep themselves connected and to keep the despots out.

            The Queer community, as it is sometimes referred to as an umbrella term for the LGBT+ community (however that term has been debated as it once was used as a slur), has a sense of humor. In recent years a lot of young queers (or baby gays if you will) have taken long outdated slurs and turned them into words of affirmation and acceptance. Such as the word “fruity”. What once was a rude term to describe a gay person, is now a loving term used to identify other people of the community. It is like an inside joke, but for a larger group of people. A way for queer to make light of the injustices against them and as a rebellion to their oppressors.  Queers reclaim this word to take back the harmful narrative that has presented them and to relate to each other. This word simply means that you are fruit if you are gay.

When we use language, we don’t often think about where it comes from. It comes so naturally once it is in our vocabulary that it just slips our minds. We have a predisposition to believe that it was created by a friend of a friend, or just that who we heard it from first knew where it began. The word originates from the early 19th century in Great Britain and was used mostly by the lower class in unsavory professions, such as sex workers and showmen. The original definition meant a mentally ill person, but as time progressed the word eventually came to mean more specifically, that the mental illness was homosexuality. Fruits, the food, is usually thought of as soft, and considered extremely feminine. By comparing queer men to a fruit, by those terms, it was insulting.

The 21st-century technology brought with it, globalization. People from all over the planet now have easier access to communicate with each other. The queer community has been able to connect what was small groups and bring together a larger base. We are existing on a global scale that less isolating and communities have been able to share our once regional specific language with one another. Queer groups have existed in different forms around the globe, and social media has brought them together. Twitter popularized the word fruit to expand outside of England and brought it to America.

The queers have taken a harmful set of vocabulary and turned it into something meaningful. When presented with hardships instead of shaming one another in an attempt to fix into a society that would shun them. We created a place where everyone is included and supported. This comradery has allowed us to gain equal rights and acceptance. Language connected us and allowed us to become an unmovable and powerful force that has overturned previous laws that have legally renounced us, but also turn the majority of people’s opinions to believe that all humans are equal no matter who they love. Only through the power of communication and language are humans prepared to mobilize movements. Finding humor in the face of pain the queer community is an impressive force

Works Cited

Anzaldua, Gloria. “How To Tame a Wild Tongue.” “They say / I say”: the Moves that Matter in Academic Writing, edited by Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein, W. W. Norton & Company, 2014, pp. 37.

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The Sickest of the Sick

Angela La

“Did you know that the lungs are considered the organs of grief?” the chiropractor asks me, slowly moving the cold diaphragm of his stethoscope across my back. He tells me to cough, and I do. I wonder what he hears. Is there something wrong with me?

My mother sits in the corner, hand on her chest and watching with a slight frown. She’s always frowning and touching her chest, like she can’t believe anything is ever happening.

“She just coughs and coughs,” she gripes to the chiropractor. “She’s sick.”

At another time and place, I’m in a restroom, squeezed into the smallest stall with my girlfriend. She’s sitting with her legs crossed on the toilet, and I’m up against the door trying to keep myself from sliding down. We’re both whacked; before this we smoked a blunt, skin-popped a couple Dilaudid ampules, and chased it with a double G&T. I need this, and I watch her work her keys in the little plastic jar, breaking up the little white rocks. Live heavy music thumps through the walls, and I’m growing impatient. I pick a lump from the jar with my fingers and crush it between my teeth. My girlfriend laughs, calls me a sicko. We rejoin the crowd, arms linked and clinging to each other, mesmerized by the light show and the crooning silhouette on stage. This is sick, man, and I’m swallowed up by the crowd, the heat, and the colors.

Somewhere else, some time later, I hear my mother and sister arguing in the hall. I’m slumped in a mechanical bed, sort of dressed in a too-big hospital gown, sort of wrapped in that scratchy not-wool kind of blanket. I stared straight ahead, feeling very tragic and suffocated by the sunlight that beat down through the window.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with her head,” my mom says. I can’t see it, but I can picture her shaking her head in disbelief, hand on her chest.

“She’s sick,” my sister pleads.

Sick is a magic word. “Sick jokes and sick cartoons, sick comics and sick singers, sick, sick, sick – till it almost made you sick,” wrote Albert Goldman. It can mean twisted or disturbed, like this Lenny Bruce joke: “Can Billy come out and play?” “You know he has no arms or legs.” “That’s ok, we just want to use him for home plate.” That’s sick, man. It can mean physically ill, like “I got sick all over the backseat of an Uber.” Or “That’s a sick kickflip:” gnarly, dope, awesome. In standard English, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, sick means “affected with disease or ill health,” as in I have a fever so I am sick. If you read from the New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, it means “excellent; wonderful. On the principle that BAD means good,” as in The Linda Ronstadt concert was sick. In my NA group, we’re not supposed to say “addict.” We come up with different ways to describe how “sick” we are, how far along the prognosis we are: I am a person with a substance use disorder. I misuse hazardous drugs and alcohol. I am in recovery. These are all to say I have a problem, an illness. Not I am the sickness.

“When confronting the power of addiction, the power of language is important to keep in mind,” said Colleen Walsh in “Revising the language of addiction.” The terms “abuse” and “abuser” have a lot of negative connotations to it; Sarah Wakeman wrote in an article for the American Society of Addiction Medication that the words imply “a willful misconduct and have been shown to increase stigma and reduce the quality of care.” Then, there’s the difference between dependency and addiction. Someone can become dependent on opioids used to treat chronic pain, meaning if they stop taking it, they will experience withdrawal. Addiction, according to the American Psychiatric Association, is a medical disorder that involves compulsive substance use despite harmful consequences. The Gateway Foundation says, “The pervasiveness of addiction replacement shows that addiction is a disease, not a bad habit.”

I line it all up on the table:

-Antibiotics

-Ketamine nasal spray

-The prescription I take to sleep

-Cough syrup with codeine

-The prescription I no longer need to take, the one I took in addition to my regular Prozac and Seroquel and the propranolol that combats the side effects of the Prozac and Seroquel

-Advil (sugar coated)

-A brown bottle of capsules filled with Chinese herbs, something to combat phlegm and wheezing

-Subscription vitamins

-Homemade smokable herb blend to help with smoking cessation

-The prescription I’m supposed to take for smoking cessation

According to my doctor, I have a lot of drive and ambition that he told me I should not confuse with well-being. He wrote in my chart that I was Classic Depressive, Substance Abuser, Articulate. He asked me how I felt, being in the psych ward, and I said I felt pretty desperate. It was the worst thing I could ever imagine, and at the same time, I couldn’t imagine it. My brain was in two pieces and I couldn’t bridge the gap. “Sick was as good a way as any to describe it,” wrote Suzanne Scanlon.

It’s a weird feeling to be a member of the unexclusive club of people who have been damaged by addiction, perpetually in recovery. The period when a person is recovering from sickness is called a convalescence. The time in this space is slow moving, we often say at the meetings to “take it one day at a time.” I wish sick only meant the thing you’re first taught it means, that it involves sneezing and coughing and chills. We use it to mean being angry all the time, not getting enough sleep, sleeping too much, hurting people and breaking promises. It’s desperate and maddening, and Supervert wrote it best: “I am taunting my future self, making my own life more painful and difficult. I do it willingly, proud of the work I do in terrorizing myself, all the while fearing the point at which it will catch up to me.” Would a healthy person do that to themself?

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Special Languages – Viktoria Borosan

The world is my home. I am 21 years old and my move to the United States was my 20th. It was the 20th time in my life that I took everything I could, saved some of the valuables that are somewhat closer to my heart and then said goodbye to another place I once built up to be, by the purest meaning of the word, a home.

In order to lead such a lifestyle, even if it is, by God, involuntary, I needed to understand and accept the fact that, no matter where I go in this world, I have a right to be there and I belong. Having read Gloria Anzaldua’s “How To Tame a Wild Tongue”, however, added a great new value to this idea for me.

Hungarian is my native tongue, I know I speak Standard Hungarian quite well, given I lived in the capital for 11 years, as well as the Southern Hungarian dialect of Somogy county, where I was born and most of my family still lives. On top of this, I have been bilingual for 10 years by speaking English. After reading the Anzaldua essay, however, I have been feeling like a completely new library of knowledge opened up for me, that has always been there, but I never acknowledged.

Now, I speak the language of Budapest’s ghettos, the language of my “elite” high school, Hungarian slang, and that interesting mixture of Hungarian and Boyash my grandmother uses now and then. They all bring me a sense of belonging, while perfectly representing the many colors of my identity. Yes, I am a pedant, occasionally snobbish big city gal who can easily mend with government officials, academics, and members of the Hungarian upper ten and yes, I am a Gypsy woman whose immediate ancestors come from poverty and have a history of poor education. And I belong. I am home in either of these environments because I speak their language and I can communicate with them like I am one of them. Because I am.

Still, there is that special kind of belonging, the type that is almost like a shared secret between my community and me, the one Gloria Anzaldua explores, when she writes about reading a novel written in her language for the first time, which I only have one of. It ties me to my very roots, my beginning, much like Anzaldua’s case (40). It manifests in an easy and yet strange word that only people of Somogy county understand, one that leaves all other Hungarians baffled and confused. This word is ‘akadál’. It is a verb, meaning “it is in the way”. For example, “Az asztal akadál” means “The table is in the way”.

Somogy county is nothing special to be honest. It is just part of the countryside just like every part of Hungary that falls outside of Budapest. Most people know where it is only because it lays on the Southern shore of Lake Balaton. Besides that, it is as insignificant as it gets, it does not have its own culture, no big historical moments took place in Somogy, the county does not have any famous sights and it produced only one famous Hungarian poet who then later on moved to and died in the capital. It is irrelevant and rather ordinary. Nothing makes it stand out as much ‘akadál’.

As I said, it is a simple word with no special meaning behind it. Yet, if I was to use this word in any academic paper, or even better, in my Matura Exam, which is basically the European version of the SAT, I would surely lose points because “it is an inexistent expression”. It is rather ironic how this word that I once used without thinking twice every day suddenly became an obstacle in my way towards success by the time I turned 11, much befitting its meaning, as using this word can easily subject me to judgement much like in Gloria Anzaldua’s case (34).

This is a word that whenever I hear from someone, I cannot help but chuckle to myself because I know the experience that comes with it. I know all the confused, blank, sometimes mean looks it attracts, the laughs it can give you after explaining the word to a stranger, and the sense of siblinghood it awakens when you get to meet someone from your county in a strange environment, far from home. Suddenly, when you talk about your almost meaninglessly small village or town, it is not a polite but indifferent hum you receive as a reaction but bright eyes and enthusiastic stories.

I strongly believe words are beyond powerful but no matter where I go, I have yet to come across something quite like “akadál”. With hardly anything special about it, it has the power to unite an entire county. Language has a way of giving ground for individuals to feel represented and valid, just as it can be seen in” How To Tame a Wild Tongue”, and that is exactly what “akadál” does to the people of Somogy county, be it rich or poor, gypsy or non-Gypsy. Because, surely, linguists say Somogy-ians pronounce ‘sh’ as if it was ‘zs’ and the rhythm of our speech resembles Croatian influence due to the proximity of the country, but the truth is, my county’s dialect is rather hard to distinguish, and it can warry by region. There is simply nothing else like ‘akadál’ for us.

Therefore, while the world is my home and I know I have a right to stay, no matter where I go, ‘akadál’ now represents the beginning of my story and my life better than anything. It is something I can carry with myself everywhere, now part of those few valuables I always keep by my side, because it is within, and it is here to enrichen, pamper and remind me.

Works Cited:

Anzaldua, Gloria. “How To Tame a Wild Tongue.” “They say / I say”: the Moves that Matter in Academic Writing, edited by Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein, W. W. Norton & Company, 2014, pp. 40.

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Slang for Dummies

Eliana Grajales

All living things on earth communicate whether that be by the way they move or gestures, but what makes humans so special is what we use to communicate most frequently; Language. Languages such as English are used day to day, but is there a “proper” way of speaking it? The answer to that question is no! Humans make new ways to speak languages all the time, this is called slang. The fascinating thing about slang is that an English speaking British person wouldn’t understand an English speaking New Yorker if they called a car a “whip.” Some other words New Yorkers have made into slang are “buggin”, “tight”, or “lit.” Some would argue that these words and phrases should not be used because they are an incorrect way of speaking. Although some may say so, slang should not be considered improper at all and it can easily be important to someone’s identity.

A word that I use often that can be considered slang is Bodega. It’s an originally Latin word for “winehouse” but what I and many others refer to when we say Bodega is a corner store. This word can be understood all throughout New York but if I ask my friends from Texas what that means they’ll have no clue. It makes me feel special because it feels like a secret code word of some kind. Alternatively, when people understand the word when I say it, I feel a sort of comradery with the person. To some it’s not a big deal to understand and a part of regular life, for me it means much more. Although hispanics from other places may not even use this word at all, bodega makes me feel more in touch with my Puerto Rican heritage. Why? I unfortunately lack the skill to speak a second language and the spanish slang that I use daily is the closest thing I have to my great grandparents home, Puerto Rico. Interestingly enough, bodega makes me feel a part of a group but also sets me apart from other people, emphasizing how it makes me feel “special.” In this era of my life I lack a lot of New York friends and when I say words that they’re unfamiliar with, like Bodega, it gives me a chance to teach them a word that’s unique to my home. 

I am a young Puerto Rican from the Bronx and I’ve lived here all my life. I hear slang being used frequently to the point where I don’t bat an eye when someone calls me “cuh.” These words personally make me feel at home and I have a great understanding of them, some words are even blended in with Spanish since I live in a Hispanic community. Throughout my school experience though, me and my fellow classmates were told it was impolite to address others using slang and we were encouraged to speak “correctly”. The English many of my classmates spoke fluently in and couldn’t simply “turn off” wasn’t good enough to those who held authority over us. If someone was raised to speak a certain way it can’t be an easy experience to change it all for someone else’s approval.. My question is if a 10 year old child and their class can understand slang, why can’t they utilize that to communicate? 

Gloria Anzaldúa explored her situation with being condemned for the way she spoke in her essay How to Tame A Wild Tongue. On page 34 Anzaldúa was told “I want you to speak English” by her mother even though she was speaking it. Anzaldúa did not express difficulty speaking the language, the only discernible thing about her English was her accent. She was making an attempt to speak what some may call “correct English” and was scolded for something that wasn’t exactly in her control. In reality, Anzaldúa was being punished for trying to stay true to herself and not conforming in the way others wanted. That’s the entire issue, conformity. Kids in schools and young people like Anzaldúa and myself are forced to believe in this idea of proper English when the way we all speak is perfectly valid and  contributes to who we are.

Language is a form of self expression, some people use secret phrases or words to communicate an idea to another person. If their language can be understood by just one individual then it should be considered correct. Policing the way others speak can suck out the creativity some have and their individualism. 

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Vogue

Ryan Smith

The Queer community has always found solace within itself and among its peers, therefore queer language was born. This language trickles down from various communities but the one with the biggest impact is the Black Community but more so the Black Queer Community. Queer people have taken these ideas and phrases, and brought them into a different light shared amongst the world.

There are limitless phrases and words that live within these communities that the Hetero community wouldn’t understand or resonate with. These phrases and words are ever changing in addition to evolving with newer generations and influences adding to the mix. As we use these words and phrases, we need to be mindful and be respectful about where they came from. One of the most famous sources for this is the film Paris is Burning. A film documenting the lives of Black and Latin queer individuals living in New York City during the 1980’s. Its primary focus is the “Ball Culture” but also dictates many words and phrases that are used today by so many different people. Nowadays there are many renditions of specific words, nevertheless they all share one quality and that’s they all stemmed from one place of origin.

The “Ball Culture” stemming from the very beginning of the 1920’s was a way for Black and Latino Queer people to showcase talents and “looks” within what they would refer to as their “Houses”. Houses were a family like group of individuals that have found shelter within each other. They would often compete amongst one another in these “Balls” turning looks and striking poses to earn trophies and a name for themselves. New York City was seen as the epicenter of the Ball room scene and still to this day it’s still unmatched. This culture and world caught the attention of many faces who were in the mainstream media at the time of the late 1980’s to early 1990’s. That’s when the world really saw the endless talent of this Queer Community. Arguably the biggest artist at the time was Madonna who really put the spotlight on Ball scene with her hit classic Vogue. The song starts off with the quotes “What are you looking at? Strike a pose, Strike a pose Vogue (vogue, vogue) Vogue (vogue, vogue)”. As familiar as those words are now, the term “Vogueing” simply states: To walk or dance in such a way that you imitate characteristic poses from a model on a catwalk. During her many performances she showed the world what it meant to “Vogue” by showcasing the talents of these artists in her shows who’ve directly come from the Ball Room scene for instance Luis Xtravaganza Camacho and Jose Gutierez Xtravaganza, both from the Legendary House of Xtravaganza.

This can all be seen as a direct relation to the famous essay “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What is? Written by James Baldwin. In the essay he states how “Black English” isn’t shown as a reputable language in terms of white people. Yet people are ever taking words and phrases from the Black Community, yet they put down their trying efforts and make it seem as if their language and words aren’t as valid as the ones used by white people. Baldwin states that white people belittle the Black Community with the language used but by no effort try to understand and respect the chosen language used but instead they look down upon it. To this very day it happens with Black and Queer language. Some saw Madonna as someone who’s white, essentially stole this culture from The Black and Latino Queer community with her hit single Vogue. But with further discussion she paid respects to the ones whose very life she showed the world. We must always remember where these words and phrases originated from and to be used with the upmost respect.

Language isn’t just words thrown together piece by piece, but instead is a beautiful work of art. It has history, culture, pain, and love. It’s all things that make it unique to people from all walks of life. These languages are deep rooted in so many different communities from all over the world and it’s what makes the human experience immeasurable. With each passing day we see these ideas and words develop into something original and innovative. Within the queer community there’s so many diverse groups but the one thing that seems to be unbounded is the language spoken. It’s a rare and beautiful thing to be a part of and should be celebrated in such a way.

 

Works Cited: 

Baldwin, James. “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?” 

                     The New York Times. 29 July 1979, 

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/29/specials/baldwin-english.html?,%2522%2520&st=cse

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Special Languages

Think about the languages you speak –not just the kinds of big languages that get printed on the spines of dictionaries (English, Arabic, Spanish, and so on) but the languages that your smaller communities have built and use to, in Baldwin’s terms, “describe and thus control” their realities.

Many of these authors discuss the ways languages create and define group identities by inclusion and exclusion. How have you observed this in your own life? Think about the groups you belong to: what “secret languages” do you use? Choose one word or phrase that a groups you belong to uses that people outside of that group do not use and/or understand. In what ways does this word or phrase operate? Use at least one of our readings as an analytical framework or point of reference.

Write about this word or phrase in an essay of 750-1000 words. For your first submitted draft, you submit this essay via Turn It In on our Blackboard page. (See my email if you are confused.) Your final draft will be published as a blog post on this site.

First Draft due Saturday, 10/2, 11:59 pm

Final Draft due Sunday, 10/10, 11:59 pm

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In Which I Fangirl Out Over Natalie Diaz

Read this and watch the videos before you read the essays, is my advice. I’m not forcing a comment on this one — though commenting makes class more fun for everyone! — but I think you will get more out of the essays if you do this part.

Natalie Diaz. What’s not to love?

She’s a poet. She’s a warrior for language preservation. She’s a basketball star. She has the coolest insta, full of pictures of Mojave land and cool cocktails and thoughts about poetry I don’t see other places. Like this one, for instance:

…which I can’t get to embed properly. Here’s a link:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Natalie Diaz (@ndinn)

This week, we are looking at two short essays of hers about language. But boy howdy, is her poetry also worth your time. I’m a particular fan of:

“Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan Seraphym Subjugation of a Wild Indian Rezervation”

“As A Consequence of My Brother Stealing All The Lightbulbs”

“I Watch Her Eat The Apple”

“They Don’t Love You Like I Love You”

“These Hands, If Not God’s”

…I could go on. You don’t have to read any of those poems. But you should! She’s spectacular, and she is also still alive and writing! Get your life.

Here are a couple of videos to watch before class.

This video was made by the MacArthur Foundation, after Diaz won the award popularly known as the Genius Grant.

…And here’s me carrying on about her:

Now go read those essays!

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Losing Farther, Losing Faster.

Click here to read Natalie Diaz’s essay “Losing Farther, Losing Faster.”

https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2014/03/natalie-diaz-losing-farther-losing-faster-reading-elizabeth-bishops-one-art-while-trying-to-save-my-.html

Please also read the Elizabeth Bishop poem she is writing back to, “One Art”

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47536/one-art

After you read this essay, post a reply using the “terms and ideas” model. Watch the Terms and Ideas” video and read more about that model here.

A reminder on the form:

  1. Read the article (or essay or poem) first. Take note of things you need to look up. Look them up. Check that you are using a definition that makes sense.
  2. Mark sections of the text that introduce interesting ideas. This is much easier to do if you are reading on paper! If you are reading on-screen, write notes in a notebook. I know, it’s easier not to, but you will really, really wish you had done this when it is time to write a paper on this topic. Plus it makes you smarter.
  3. In you reply, list at least 3 terms you looked up. This can mean just looking a word up in the dictionary — such as “tabernacle,” in the James Baldwin — or looking up a broader concept — such as “Congo Square” in wikipedia or similar. (Yes, wikipedia is fine for this purpose.)
  4. PROVIDE A SOURCE FOR YOUR DEFINITION. If you copy it word for word — which is fine for this assignment — PUT IT IN QUOTATION MARKS. You don’t need to use full MLA format for this assignment, though you are welcome to. A URL in parentheses or a link is fine. But get in the habit of giving credit to your sources.
  5. Next, write 1-3 paragraphs about an idea in the text you think is worth further examination.
  6. After making your reply, return to the post and comment on 2-3 of your classmates’ replies. You may learn something! There are a lot of smart people around here.