When Columbus “discovered” America, he founded the tradition that Europeans now call “The Age of Imperialism.” Westerners invaded existing native cultures and oppressed them with their language, culture, education, and world view. Aurora and Rosario Morales, Edward Kamau Brathwaite, and Gloria Anzaldua use their oppressor’s language to express their own personal history within the greater collective colonial history that people like to ignore. These four authors show how language is used as a tool to counter European colonial history and as a way to create new history through the invention of new language.
Education is a major focal point to understanding personal experience. Brathwaite especially points out the significance of education in his piece “Nation Language.” To him, the British education he was provided in the Caribbean had very little relevance to life in those tropical islands and, in fact, contributed to the oppression of non-whites. This is a major paradox. Education is supposed to free you from the bonds of ignorance and injustice and lead you to a more enlightened and wise perspective. But for education to be used as a means of continued oppression sets up a scenario where language is a prison. For the upper class British whites imposing this system, it was probably nothing new considering their own class system back home uses accent and education to determine a person’s status in society. Brathwaite uses the term “nation language” to erase the connotations of the words “accent” and “dialect” that Westerner’s try to impose.
Similarly, Anzaldua also feels cheated by the education she was provided. Growing up in Texas, she was punished for speaking Spanish or accented English. Assimilation is what her teacher expected from her, and her unwillingness to blend in is reflected in the title of her piece: “How to Tame a Wild Tongue.” For her oppression didn’t come in the form of an education that was biased and irrelevant; more that the role of...