The effect of language and power on identity (Takeaway from the discussion on Woman Warrior and How To Tame A Wild Tongue)

Social identity is one's sense of self as a member of a social group. This is shaped largely by the cultural identity of a person, which is one's sense of how their culture affects their actions and their personal identity. 

In the text 'Women Warrior', the author describes how she was silent when she was a little kid. How she did not feel confident while talking, but felt better when she was reading, shows how she was conforming to the stereotype of the 'shy little Asian girl'. But soon, as she started meeting different people, like the 'black ghosts' and the 'ghost teachers', she became a bit more outgoing. In sixth grade, the author describes how she was flustered when she met another girl who was very quiet. She went after the quiet girl everywhere, and tried to talk to her. The author was angry at the fact that the little girl never talked. Here, we can she how the outlook, and hence the identity of the author changed. As the author grew up, her personal identity started to change. She started to discover herself, and it quickly grew up on her. This change in personal identity overcame her cultural identity, which led to a change in her social identity. This was only possible since she knew English, which shows the relation between language, power and identity. How she tried to instil the same change in the little girl is described to great length in the passage.

"How to Tame a Wild Tongue" is a description of how the author feels oppressed due to the fact that she did not connect with either of the languages: English or Spanish. During her childhood, she was taught in school that Spanish was a bad language. She was forced to speak English, which she conformed to then, since she did not understand much. After that, later in her life, she was discriminated in the Spanish community itself because she spoke in Chicano. Chicano was thought of as bad Spanish, hence her perception of her personal identity changed when she spoke Chicano. Chicano made the author feel like she was not as important in society, and lowered her self-esteem, as was the case with a lot of Chicano speakers. But as the author grew, she realised how important Chicano was to her and people who spoke it. She says in the passage how she will no longer feel ashamed of existing. This shows us how the change in perception of the authors personal and cultural identity by herself led to a creation of a new social identity.

What is interesting is how personal identity isn't permanent in the above cases, and is largely affected by the power of the oppressors language. Social and cultural identity all depend on the perception of the culture and oneself. We can see that language and power lead to varying perceptions of the social,personal and cultural identity in the two texts, which ultimately impacts the master identity of a person.