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September 13, 2006
The Habitual Writings Of...
The Habitual Writings Of …
When I reflect upon my identity as an author, I imagine myself as a scholar that writes from the perspective of a historian/activist that focuses on issues of language, bilingualism, and Latino/a rhetoric.
Throughout my academic career, I have always been interested in linguistics and the ways in which language both authorizes and dehumanizes persons that hail from marginalized cultures.
As a graduate student of linguistics, many of my papers focused on Spanish and English bilingualism issues, concentrating on dialect differences among Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, and other Latinos. What I have always found particularly interesting is the use of and the hysteria surrounding Spanglish. Many language purists view Spanglish not as the evidence of cultural amalgamation, but instead as the bastardization of two languages. I view the growth and expansion of Spanglish as the natural promiscuity of a language that seeks to incorporate the linguistic details of American assimilation in the most obvious way-by collapsing morphemes, phonemes, and grammatical details in an attempt to be larger and more efficient. My role as an author during my tenure as a student in the linguistics department was to shed light on the history of Spanglish and advocate for its usage in all settings. The difficulty was finding enough information about it beyond the two volumes that I had read. To date, the scholarship concerning this language (I refuse to diminish it by naming it a dialect) remains limited, as Spanglish continues to be treated as a linguistic anomaly.
As I completed my masters’ degree I decided that in order to effect any real change, I would have to pursue my interest in language and culture in a more focused program. Having taken classes with Professor Amardo Rodriguez while obtaining my masters, and knowing that he shared my interest in Spanglish and other forms of intercultural communication, I asked him for his advice. He told me that the program I wanted to apply to was CCR, because “they were constantly doing new things with rhetoric and composition”. In preparing my application to the program, it seemed natural to me to submit a paper I had written on Spanglish, since my plan was to continue my study of these semi-new language phenomena.
Upon acceptance to the program, I began to realize that it was not just Spanglish that I needed to focus on, but the rhetoric of Latino/as as well. Knowing the importance that language has on the construction of social identity, other questions concerning the importance of rhetorical practices began to formulate in my mind.
The first class I took was with Becky Howard, in which one of our tasks was to write a proposal to CCCC’s in the hope of being accepted (invited) to attend. The title of my abstract was “The Erasure of Spanglish within Composition Studies”. Much to my surprise, I was invited to present! While writing this paper I discovered that my desire to defend Spanglish needed to be rooted in more than a socio-linguistic history. This is when I realized how important it would be for my work to focus on the recovery of Latino/a rhetoric and make the case for inclusion of it in our field.
I have had several classes since then, all of which have familiarized me with our field, the most prominent and well-known scholars, and the most current conversations. Unfortunately, many of those conversations do not center upon the rhetoric(s) of different cultures, save the “special edition” issues that surface once a year, if that frequently. For me, that means that when I want to write a paper about Latino/a rhetoric, I immediately go to Victor Villanueva’s writings. His writing resonates with me; it makes me feel at home.
In evaluating the writing I have done during my tenure as a graduate student I see that language was the singular most important issue for me. I wanted Spanglish speakers to be comfortable within their lexicon, but now I also want them to have validation for it. I want those of us that are bilingual to know that we too can claim a tradition that is worthwhile and valid. But most importantly, I want to see Latino/a rhetoric addressed more than just once a year, or when it is fashionable. I want to see Latino/a rhetoric be included in more tables of contents, more anthologies, and by authors/scholars that are not Latino-just as we non-Greeks write about, discuss, include and refer to classical rhetoric in all of our current textbooks. I hope that my authorial identity will develop into one that will combine history, activism, and egalitarianism, and give the gatekeepers of the canon reason to broaden their horizons. Utopic indeed.
Posted by dvaldesd at September 13, 2006 12:25 AM