Difficulity Paper

I read the short story by Gloria Anzaldua, "How To Tame A Wild Tongue".  I was stacked and freeze at my computer when I read, " Chicano Spanish is considered by the purist and by most Latinos deficient, a mutilation of Spanish". Besides another quote, " For a people who are neither Spanish nor live in a country in which Spanish is the first language; for a people who live in a country in which English is the reigning tongue but who are not Anglo; for a people who cannot identify with either standtad (formal, Castilian) Spanish nor standard English, what recourse is left to them but to create their own language? A language which they can connect their identity to, one capable of communicating the realities and values true to themselves---- a language with terms that are neither espanol ni inglise, but both." After the thorough reading over the weekend and today; I, kind of get the idea what all these Spanish words mean and how they can to connected to the paragraph. I believe that people who have freedom, eventual will the have the power and knowledge to be successful and productive. Identifying oneself or society should not be judged or procrastinated by other who dominate the culture and the language arena. Some of the words  resembled the original English words, for instance "adopcion" meaning adoption . It is chunked and has so much impressive information and well explained. Reading this story made me think that even if the situations are different, in the country where 70 ethincities live together, repression to other languages, cultures and societies fight before extinction.  

Rough Identity Paper

In my reading of, "How To Tame A Wild Tongue" by Gloria Anzaldua, she touch so many of the buttons which resonate in to how I define identity. Simply, identity is how someone portrayed or sees him answering the basic purpose of existence. In her short story, Gloria   showed how language, family, community, religion, and environment had shaped her identity.   I like the emphasis and the power of language in Anzaldua writing, “So, if you want to really hurt me, talk badly about my language. Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity- I am my language."  

Gebremedhin Teshale

I am no different than most of the people in my class. But the influence and shaping power my dad had on me was so immense. My dad, Gebremedhin Teshale, was very honest, impartial, courageous, bright minded, faithful and religious man. He was born and rise in a family of 13 children with a very strict father in a very remote village where there is no school, health clinic----nothing was there. Sincerely looking for education, he moved in to a provincial town called Dessie, where his uncle, a priest resided. Finally he found and joined elementary school where any level of education considered to a man being, "Civilized". After this, he got married, bare children, hired and worked as an accountant for 36 years in Boru Meda Hospital located in Ethiopia.  During his time of service, he made the Hospital profitable by working hard and being honest towards his assignment on the stewardship of money. The Hospital he worked for stood most of the time first and other times second among other Hospitals in our Province. Besides, he was a man of God. He had faith that made him stood by on what he believed. He stood for justice and equal rights. He fought for many victims who were betrayed by the higher management and continued to be an advocate to the poor. In response he got pushed out of his position and even transferred to another location. He never quit there. He took the injustice done to him to the regional Supreme Court and at last found justice. Nonetheless, the provincial government ignored the decision of the higher court and went on doing business as usual. In all these, I saw a man of honor integrity, persistence, perseverance and never say no to thing. He shaped me to be honest, respectful, and faithful above all to have a faith in God and his son Jesus Christ. Till the time I moved in to California, I lived and worked with so many people and all over the country that have different language, culture and personality than me. And I managed to live with them in harmony, peace, personal integrity and with a sense of purpose. 

Revised Amendments XIII,XIV and XV

According to Robert Divine, one of the historical hits in American history exhibited Abraham Lincoln’s and Black African Americans dream coming to reality. The bloody war shone light on and gave the suppressed and destitute African Americans to exercise life, liberty and pursuit of happiness as the white Americans do. The ratification of Amendment XIII, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, nor any place subject to their jurisdiction.” achieved the most important of goal on social, cultural, political and economical where America would go ahead. This was the core driving urge of all people in the Northern States. To those Radicals, this was the beginning of the road to equality among the human race. While the war was going on between the confederates and the Unions, President Lincoln and the congress were at odds with policy matters towards tormented south. President Lincoln followed a very lenient policy while the Congress was demanding more aggressive measures of emancipation, civil rights and provision of franchisement through the Freedman’s Bureau.

According to section 1 of Amendment XIV, Radical Republicans demanded the time sensitive need of Citizenship for all Black African Americans born and naturalized. It states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” This law gave the right of Citizenship for all Black African Americans who were born or naturalized in the United States. This Amendment was considered as a referendum for Southern States whether they would join the Union or not. As the war went on taking more lives, and executive branch changed from an assassinated Lincoln to Andrew Johnson, the newly freed Black African Americans faced new challenges in the hands of their former Owners, White Supremacists, who were elected and held offices in those Southern States. Even if President Johnson implemented the emancipation act while he was a military governor in Tennessee, he was an enthusiastic white supremacist. In desperate need of ending the war and reconstruction, he proposed to repudiate the confederates’ debt, ratify the XIII amendment abolish slavery and for formal establishment of Southern Governments. He also gave the authority what to do with the civil rights and political moves of the newly freed slaves. However, these newly elected White officials introduced new laws called, “Black Codes” which imposed new restrictions and rules on the black African American. In the Contrary, the Congress saw this move as an imminent attack on the freed black people and ratified another pivotal Amendment awarded African Americans Citizenship of the United States of American; in which they would be able to Vote and sustain their freedom for long.

Section 2 of the XIV Amendment showed sets of criteria which determine age limits for holding offices and casting votes. As stated in the law, “…being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.”, age, former alienation or crime were the major factors in cast votes and holding public offices. Besides, there would be difference between the vote count of Black and whites.

Section 3 stated, “No person shall be…shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two thirds of each House, remove such disability.”  The only way to held office and became the citizen of the United States would depend on the the 2/3rd vote of congress. The law was in place to oversee the former confederate States during the reconstruction period.

Sites Cited Read more:

Amendments to the Constitution of the United States — Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0749825.html#ixzz1mDf9w15n, mEM7AT2B, mEgF9zgM, mEj9LTAQ,  Ek6COIM, mEme9lC1.

Divine, Robert A. "Appendix" America Past and Present. Upper Saddle River, NJ: