Loss of Family Languages: Should Educators Be Concerned?
Author(s):

Lily Wong

Fillmore

Source: Theory Into Practice, Vol. 39, No. 4, Children and Languages at School (Autumn,
2000), pp. 203-210
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
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Lily Wong Fillmore

Loss of Family Languages:
Should Educators Be Concerned?

Y CONSERVATIVE ESTIMATES, 3.5 million chil-
dren in U.S. schools are identified as limit-

ed in English proficiency (LEP) (Macias, 1998).
Their knowledge of English is so limited that with-
out linguistic help they are excluded “from effective
participation in the educational program offered” by
the schools they attend (Lau v. Nichols, 1974). The
Supreme Court’s ruling in Lau v. Nichols held that
these children must be provided instructional help
to overcome the linguistic barrier to the school’s
instructional programs. The Court did not specify
a particular programmatic remedy, but suggested
that bilingual education was one possible approach,
while instruction in English as a second language
(ESL) was another. Since then, both bilingual and
ESL programs have been established in many states
to help children learn English and gain access to
the curriculum.

The dilemma facing immigrant children, how-
ever, may be viewed as less a problem of learning
English than of primary language loss. While vir-
tually all children who attend American schools
learn English, most of them are at risk of losing
their primary languages as they do so.

In one sense, primary language loss as chil-
dren acquire English is not a new problem. Few
immigrant groups have successfully maintained
their ethnic languages as they became assimilated

Lily Wong Fillmore is professor of education at the
University of California at Berkeley

into American life.’ As they learned English, they
used it more and more until English became their
dominant language.

The outcome in earlier times was nonethe-

less bilingualism. The second generation could
speak the ethnic language and English, although
few people were equally proficient in both lan-
guages. The loss of the ethnic language occurred
between the second and the third generations be-
cause second generation immigrants rarely used the
ethnic language enough to impart it to their own
children. Thus, the process of language loss used
to take place over two generations. (Fishman &
Hofman, 1966; Portes & Rumbault, 1990).

The picture has changed dramatically in the
case of present day immigrants. Few current sec-
ond generation immigrants can be described as bi-
linguals (L6pez, 1982). Ordinarily, we assume that
when children acquire a second language, they add
it to their primary language, and the result is bilin-
gualism. But in the case of most present-day im-
migrant children, the learning of English is a
subtractive process (Lambert, 1977), with English
quickly displacing and replacing the primary lan-
guage in young first generation immigrants. The
result is that few immigrant children become bi-
linguals today by learning English. Over the past
25 years, this process of accelerated language loss in
immigrant children and families has been document-
ed repeatedly (Fillmore, 1991a, 1991b; Hinton, 1999;

THEORY INTO PRACTICE, Volume 39, Number 4, Autumn 2000
Copyright ? 2000 College of Education, The Ohio State University
0040-5841/2000$1.50

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THEORY INTO PRACTICE/ Autumn 2000

Children and Languages at School

Kouritzin, 1999; Portes & Hao, 1998). The follow-
ing is an account of the experiences of one such
family.

A Case of Language Shift and Loss
The Chen2 family is like many Chinese im-

migrants who have come to the United States over
the past several decades. The family came from
China’s Canton province via Hong Kong, where
they had spent nearly a decade waiting for a visa
to immigrate to the United States. The Chens ar-
rived in the United States in 1989: Mother, Father,
Uncle (Father’s brother), Grandmother (Father’s
mother), and the children, Kai-Fong, age 5 at the
time of arrival (now 16); and Chu-Mei, age 4 (now
15). Once settled, the family quickly added two
more children-the “ABC” (“American born Chi-
nese”) members of the Chen family, both girls,
Chu-wa (now 10); and Allison (now 9 years old).
A consideration of how the members of this fami-

ly fared in their first decade in America is reveal-
ing. Sadly, it is a story that many immigrant
families have experienced firsthand.

Contrasting experiences
The Chens settled in a suburban town in the

San Francisco Bay area where Father, Mother, and
Uncle had jobs waiting for them in a restaurant
owned by a relative. They went to work in the
restaurant’s kitchen, and because the kitchen work-
ers were all Chinese, their lack of English was not
a handicap. They worked long hours each day, leav-
ing home early in the morning and returning close
to midnight. Grandmother stayed at home with the
children, and everything was fine at first. She got
the children ready for school and was at home to
care for them when they were out of school.

School was difficult for the children initial-

ly, but they did not complain much. The elementa-
ry school that Kai-fong and Chu-mei attended had
many minority group students. Some, although not
many, were LEP students like themselves. The
school had no bilingual or ESL classes, so non-
English speakers like Kai-fong and Chu-mei were
simply placed in regular classes where it was as-
sumed they would learn English. Both began kin-
dergarten at the same time and were placed in the
same classroom. The teacher spoke English only,

but she gave the several non-English speakers in
her class extra attention whenever she could.

Chu-mei soon made friends with classmates

and learned some English from them and from the
teacher. Her adjustment, after the first year in
school, was excellent. She had learned enough En-
glish in kindergarten to make reading in the first
grade more or less possible. She was neat, agree-
able, and sociable. She fit into the social world of
the classroom without difficulty.

Kai-fong had quite a different experience in
school. He was not as outgoing as his sister, and
from the start, had difficulty establishing himself
socially with his classmates. Some of the boys in
the class teased him mercilessly. After Grandmother
had cut his hair, it stuck straight out and would
not lie flat. They called him “Chi, chi, chi, Chia-
pet,” after a then popular gift item that was adver-
tised frequently on television-a pig-shaped vase
that grew spikey grass hair when watered. Kai-
fong probably did not know what a “chia-pet” was,
but he knew his classmates were making fun of his
appearance. He wore homemade trousers that Grand-
mother had made from some polyester stretch yard-
age for him and for Chu-mei. The fabric worked well
for Chu-mei, but not for Kai-fong. The boys in his
class teased him about his “flower pants.”

One day at school, there was a rock throwing
incident involving Kai-fong and some other boys.
It was unclear who started throwing rocks at whom,
but they were all caught with rocks in their hands.
The other children could tell their side of the story
to the teacher on yard duty; Kai-fong could not.
When the incident was reported to Father and Moth-
er, they did not understand what had happened.
They knew only that Kai-fong had gotten into trou-
ble at school. Kai-fong was severely reprimanded
by Father, Mother, and Grandmother, and he grad-
ually began to withdraw.

In time, Kai-fong learned enough English to
get by, and his wardrobe and hair became less dis-
tinctive. But he remained an outsider. In class, he
was an indifferent student and rarely said anything
spontaneously. He had a small group of friends
with whom he played on the playground-other
Asian immigrant boys who, like himself, were not
finding it easy to fit into the social world of the
school. Several boys were Vietnamese, one was

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Fillmore

Loss of Family Languages

Filipino, the others were Thai. The English they
spoke had many dialect features that were picked
up from the African-American children in the
school, although they had little interaction with
them. Kai-fong and his friends seemed to admire
the African-American boys, and copied their dress,
musical taste, and speech. The African-American
boys were also outsiders at school, but they were
the “cool guys,” and they operated within their
own social sphere both in and out of school.

Increasing separation
At home, Kai-fong became increasingly an

outsider. Once he learned a little English, he
stopped speaking Cantonese altogether. When
Grandmother spoke to him, he either ignored her
or would mutter a response in English that she did
not understand. When pushed, he would simply
stop speaking. Grandmother’s complaints to Mother
and Father resulted in frequent scoldings, and in-
creasingly severe reprimands and sanctions. The
more the adults scolded, the more sullen and angry
Kai-fong became.

By the age of 10, Kai-fong, who was now
known as Ken, was spending most of his time away
from home, hanging out with his buddies, away
from the scolding and haranguing. He and his
friends spoke English only, and although some of
them may have retained their primary languages,
Kai-fong/Ken did not. He no longer understood
Cantonese well and rarely said anything in that
language.

Over time, Grandmother became withdrawn

too. She had chronic headaches, which often im-
mobilized her. Whether the headaches were caused

by the tension in the home or not, it certainly did
not help. The headaches made it hard for her to
care for the younger children, and this was often
left to Chu-mei. Each day, while her sisters were
young, she hurried home from school and would
play with them and teach them things she was learn-
ing. From her they learned English, the language
she spoke at school and the language she could
express herself in most easily.

Neither Chu-wa nor Allison (named after
Chu-mei’s best friend at school) speak Cantonese.
They call Grandmother “Ah Yin-Yin” (the address
term for paternal grandmother in Cantonese), but

they do not know how to say much else in Can-
tonese to their grandmother or their parents. In fact,
the only child in this family who can still commu-
nicate with the adults in Cantonese is Chu-mei, or
Sondra, as she prefers to be called. She interprets
for her family members when they need to com-
municate with one another.

But although Chu-mei/Sondra still speaks
Cantonese, she is not as fluent as she should be.

She is unable to express herself completely in Can-
tonese, and occasionally slips English words and
phrases into her speech as she attempts to commu-
nicate with the adults in the family. This could be
evidence of language loss or an indication that her
primary language has not continued to develop as
she has grown more mature. Either way, she is not
as proficient in Cantonese as Chinese children her
age ordinarily are.

Deteriorating family relations
Accelerated language loss is a common oc-

currence these days among immigrant families, with
the younger members losing the ethnic language
after a short time in school. In the Chen family,
the adult members have not learned much English
after a decade of residence in the United States.

Mother, Father, and Uncle would like to study En-
glish, but their long work days do not allow them
to take English as a second language classes at the
adult education center in town. Father and Uncle

have begun to pick up a little English from co-
workers and from the Americans they see occa-
sionally, but Mother and Grandmother have not
learned much at all, although Grandmother spends
most of her time at home with her English speak-
ing grandchildren.

Clearly, the Chen family was deeply affected
by the ways in which the children adjusted to life
in their new society. The shift from Cantonese to
English in this family and the loss of the family
language by the children have had a great impact
on communication between the adults and the chil-

dren and ultimately on family relations. There is ten-
sion in this home: The adults do not understand the
children, and the children do not understand the adults.

Father, Mother, and Grandmother do not feel they
know the children, and they do not know what is
happening in their lives.

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THEORY INTO PRACTICE / Autumn 2000

Children and Languages at School

This is most obvious in the case of Kai-fong/
Ken, who spends little time at home these days.
He dropped out of school over a year ago and is
out with his friends most of the time. His father

says he does not know what Kai-fong is doing, but
he does not think he has a job.

What Is Lost When a Language Is Lost?
From a strictly pragmatic perspective, what

happened to this immigrant family appears unfor-
tunate but hardly tragic. From the school’s point
of view, this could even be seen as a relative suc-

cess story. Of the four children in the Chen fami-
ly, three are doing well in school. Only one has
gotten lost, but that can happen in any family. But
is it an acceptable loss? The questions that must
be asked are these: What does school success mean,
and can we afford to lose one child in four in the

process of educating them? The three Chen chil-
dren who can be described as successful students

are so because they have learned English quickly
and have made progress at school. They are ac-
quiring the skills and information they need for
educational advancement and participation in the
work world. But is that all that is important? Can
school provide children with everything they need
to learn through the formal educational process?

I contend that the school cannot provide chil-
dren what is most fundamental to success in life.

The family plays a crucial role in providing the
basic elements for successful functioning. These
include: a sense of belonging; knowledge of who
one is and where one comes from; an understand-

ing of how one is connected to the important oth-
ers and events in one’s life; the ability to deal with
adversity; and knowing one’s responsibility to self,
family, community. Other elements could be add-
ed to the list, but the point is that these are things
the family must provide children at home while
they are growing up. They cannot be taught at
school. The content differs from family to family,
but this is the curriculum of the home-what par-
ents and other family members teach and inculcate
in children in the socialization process.

The curriculum of the home is taught by word
and example, by the way adults relate to the chil-
dren of the family, beginning at birth and not end-
ing until the children are mature and on their own.

When parents send their children to school for for-
mal education, they understand that their job of
socializing their children is far from done. They
continue to teach their children what they need to
know as they mature. The school can take what
the family has provided and augment or modify it
even, but the foundation must be laid by the family.

What happens in families where parents can-
not communicate easily with the children? What
happens when the major means of socializing chil-
dren into the beliefs, values, and knowledge base
of the family and cultural group is lost? If the
parents know any English, often they switch to
that language and, while their capacity to socialize
the children might be diminished, they are none-
theless able to teach their children some of what

they need to learn. But it is not easy to socialize
children in a language one does not know well. It
takes thorough competence in a language to com-
municate the nuances of a culture to another.

In his autobiography, Hunger of Memory
(1982), Rodriguez describes what happens in fam-
ilies when parents try to socialize their children in
a language they do not know well. He recalls what
happened as he and his siblings moved from Span-
ish to English after the parents were advised to
stop using Spanish at home with the children:

My mother and father, for their part, responded dif-
ferently as their children spoke to them less. She
grew restless, seemed anxious at the scarcity of words
exchanged in the house. It was she who would ques-
tion me when I came home from school. She smiled

at the small talk. She pried at the edges of my sen-
tences to get me to say something more. (What?)
She’d join conversations she overheard, but her in-
trusions often stopped her children’s talking. By con-
trast, my father seemed reconciled to the new quiet.
Though his English improved somewhat, he retired
into silence. At dinner he spoke very little. One night
his children and even his wife helplessly giggled at
his garbled English pronunciation of the Catholic
Grace before Meals. Thereafter he made his wife

recite the prayer at the start of each meal, even on
formal occasions, when guests were in the house.
Hers became the public voice of the family. On offi-
cial business, it was she, not my father, one would
usually hear on the phone or in stores, talking to
strangers. His children grew so accustomed to his
silence that, years later, they would speak routinely
of his shyness. But my father was not shy, I real-
ized, when I’d watch him speaking Spanish with rel-
atives. Using Spanish, he was quickly effusive.

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Fillmore
Loss of Family Languages

Especially when talking with other men, his voice
would spark, flicker, flare alive with sounds. In Span-
ish, he expressed ideas and feelings he rarely re-
vealed in English. With firm Spanish sounds, he
conveyed confidence and authority English would
never allow him. (pp. 24-25)

Can parents keep informed of what is hap-
pening to their children? Can they stay connected
with them when the children no longer understand
the family language? Can parents maintain their
roles as authority figures, teachers, and moral
guides if they are not listened to? We discern in
Rodriguez’s poignant description a family that has
lost its intimacy-the closeness between parents
and children. Children learn what it means to be

parents by observing their own parents. In this fam-
ily, the children saw shadows only and not true
pictures of who their parents were and what they
were like as persons. Rodriguez reveals how greatly
the loss of language and intimacy in the family
changed the very structure of the family as well.
The loss of language in this family severed the
spiritual bond between parents and children:

The silence at home, however, was finally more than
a literal silence. Fewer words passed between parent
and child, but more profound was the silence that
resulted from my inattention to sounds. (p. 25)

That is the dilemma. That is what is lost. One might
argue that despite all of this, Rodriguez has been a
success. He is a talented writer; he is thoughtful
and sensitive; and he has accomplished a great deal
in his life. But what his writings reveal to this
reader is a deeply conflicted and lonely man who
is trying to figure out who he is, where he be-
longs, and what his culture means. Does it matter
that children lose their family language as they
learn English as long as it does not interfere with
their educational development and success in
school? I think it does.

For immigrant children, learning English as
a second language and dealing with school suc-
cessfully are just one set of problems to be faced.
Hanging on to their first language as they learn
English is an equally great problem. Hanging on
to their sense of worth, their cultural identities,
and their family connections as they become as-
similated into the school and society is a tremen-
dous problem for all immigrant children. What is
at stake in becoming assimilated into the society is

not only their educational development but their
psychological and emotional well being as indi-
viduals as well (Cummins, 1996).

The questions we educators need to consider
are these: How and why do children give up and
lose their primary languages as they learn English?
What is involved, and what role are the schools
playing in the process?

How Is a Language Lost?
Language loss is not a necessary or inevita-

ble outcome when children acquire second languag-
es. Otherwise the world would have no bilinguals.
In many places around the world, bilingualism and
even multilingualism are commonplace. In the
United States, however, and in other societies like
it, powerful social and political forces operate
against the retention of minority languages. To
many and perhaps most Americans, English is more
than a societal language; it is an ideology. The
ideological stance is this: To be American, one
must speak English.

English gives access to participation in the
life of the society, but it is also proof of an indi-
vidual’s acceptance of and loyalty to the American
ideal. Conversely, the inability to speak English is
a sign that a person has not accepted the condi-
tions of being American. These sentiments are pow-
erful forces in how people see and deal with one
another, especially in places like California, which
have heavy concentrations of recent immigrants.3
How do these forces affect the children discussed

in this article?

The inability to speak English in school is a
handicapping condition in many communities, par-
ticularly in places that have no programs designed
to help children who are limited in English profi-
ciency. Children in such situations, irrespective of
background or age, are quick to see that language
is a social barrier, and the only way to gain access
to the social world of the school is to learn En-

glish. The problem is that they also come to be-
lieve that the language they already know, the one
spoken at home by their families, is the cause of
the barrier to participation, inclusion, and social
acceptance. They quickly discover that in the so-
cial world of the school, English is the only lan-
guage that is acceptable. The message they get is

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THEORY INTO PRACTICE/ Autumn 2000
Children and Languages at School

this: “The home language is nothing; it has no val-
ue at all.” If they want to be fully accepted, chil-
dren come to believe that they must disavow the
low status language spoken at home.

Children often start using English almost ex-
clusively outside of the home just as soon as they
have learned barely enough to get by. Before long,
they are speaking English at home as well, even
with parents who do not understand the language.
If the parents do not realize that this shift in lan-
guage behavior signals a change in the children’s
language loyalty, English will supplant the family
language completely in the children’s speech.

Language loss is the result of both internal
and external forces operating on children. The in-
ternal factors have to do with the desire for social

inclusion, conformity, and the need to communi-
cate with others. The external forces are the socio-

political ones operating in the society against
outsiders, against differences, against diversity.
They are the forces behind the passage of various
public referendums in California against “immi-
grants” and “outside influences”: Proposition 63
in 1986, banning the use of languages other than
English in public life; Proposition 187 in 1994,
denying undocumented immigrants health, welfare,
and educational services provided by public funds4;
Proposition 209 in 1996, ending affirmative action
programs in jobs and education; and finally Propo-
sition 227 in 1998, eliminating bilingual education
as the preferred instructional program for LEP stu-
dents.

Children may not understand what these pub-
lic actions mean, but they are aware of the under-
lying sentiment. They interpret it as saying to them:
To be different is to be unacceptable. Thus chil-
dren do what they believe they must to rid them-
selves of what makes them unacceptable. Language
is an obvious difference, so it is the first to go.
Names, dress, haircuts-whatever is obviously dif-
ferent is changed: Chu-mei becomes Sondra, Kai-
fong becomes Ken, and Allison is Allison from
the start. Baggy legged jeans and oversized T-shirts
replace unfashionable homemade garments, and the
children are transformed. They are still different
from their schoolmates, but not quite as different
as before. They are no longer outsiders: They are
Americans, not foreigners like their parents.

The processes of language loss and social
adaptation may differ across individuals in detail
from the picture sketched here, but the broad out-
line of these processes is general enough so that
many immigrants will be able to map their own
experiences onto it. They know what happens in
families when children abandon the family lan-
guage, and parents are no longer able to communi-
cate easily with them. They know about the gradual
erosion of trust and understanding among family
members and about the loss of parental control.

Why do people allow this to happen? Few of
those who are involved in the process of language
loss realize the consequences it can have on their
family or children until it is too late. It is difficult
for people to believe that children can actually lose
a language. They recognize that their children are
changing, becoming “Americanized,” as it were,
or more independent. But few parents doubt that
their children, if required to do so, could switch
back to their primary language. And indeed, it
might be somewhat true for some children. The
loss of a primary language is rarely total. But in
most cases, when children are not actively using
their primary language in everyday interactions,
they do not develop it further, as was the case with
Chu-mei, or Sondra. She is still able to speak Can-
tonese, but not at an appropriate level for a child
her age.

Suggestions for Educators
What can educators do to make the process

of learning the school language and adapting to
life in American culture easier on immigrant chil-
dren and their families? What can they do to make
English learning less subtractive than it is now?
Ideally children would attend schools where the
primary language is used along with English, and
they would be given opportunities to develop both
languages fully. But that may not be possible un-
der current socio-political conditions. Whether or
not it is, parents and teachers should be working
together to find other ways to support children’s
development and retention of their primary lan-
guages, and to make their adjustment to school an
easier one for everyone involved.

Such collaborative efforts between educators

and parents, although needed, are not easy. The

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Loss of Family Languages

parents who need the most help are unlikely to
speak or understand much English. If teachers can
speak their language, they can work directly with
them. Otherwise teachers must work through in-
terpreters, and that is never easy. The parents must
be convinced that they need to be involved and to
find time to work with the school for efforts like

this to work.

Many immigrant parents have long workdays
and may find it difficult to participate in school ac-
tivities after work. Others may lack the confidence to
work with teachers with whom they are not able to
communicate easily. Still others may not under-
stand the need for joint action on the part of the
home and school. Undertakings such the ones I am
suggesting require a strong developmental effort
on the part of the school. The suggestions that fol-
low are meant to help educators become aware of
the need to work with parents to make the situa-
tion in their school and community easier on im-
migrant students.

First, teachers can help parents understand
that they must provide children opportunities to
attain a mature command of their first language in
the home, whether or not it is supported in school.
This is done by using more and more mature forms
of the language at home in talking with the children
as they grow older and expecting more mature speech
from them. Parents should be encouraged to find
time to talk with their children, read to them (if
this is a practice in the culture of the home), and
teach them things that interest educated members
of their group. Families that come from cultures
with a rich oral tradition will have many stories
and histories to share with the children. Teachers

should encourage them to use these materials and to
regard them as equal to written materials that other
families might use with their children at home.

Second, teachers and parents should be aware
of the traumatic experiences children may be un-
dergoing as they try to fit themselves into the so-
cial world of the school. They need to be alert to
signs of emotional problems and to treat such prob-
lems gently and supportively rather than cause chil-
dren to withdraw further from family and teachers.

Third, teachers and parents need to work to-
gether to neutralize some of the negative forces
that operate on children in our society. When chil-

dren become alienated from parents in the process
of becoming Americans, the parents do not always
know what is going on in their children’s lives.
Teachers sometimes see what is happening with
children that the parents do not (Olsen, 1997).

Finally, teachers should help parents under-
stand that the only way ethnic languages and cul-
tures can survive in societies like the United States

is through community action. Immigrant commu-
nities have historically been involved in support-
ing heritage language and cultural programs. This
requires community action, and such action can be
taken only by members of the immigrant commu-
nity. Community action is necessary if the fami-
ly’s language and culture are to survive the process
of becoming Americans.

Notes

1. Some groups are more retentive of their ethnic lan-
guages than others, and have managed to maintain them
even into the third generation (Fishman & Hofman,
1966; Portes & Hao, 1998).
2. The family name Chen is a pseudonym, as are all
the given names used here. Chen is about as common a
surname among the Chinese as Smith or Jones is among
Americans. I have tried to use both Chinese and Amer-

ican given names that are similar enough to the real
names of family members since their names revealed
how they were adjusting to the American experience.
3. According to the Immigration and Naturalization
Service, one of every four immigrants to the United
States eventually resettles in California. When I was
recently called for jury duty, I overheard three sepa-
rate remarks from individuals complaining about
“foreigners” who could not speak English well. The
young woman who was calling names of prospective
jurors on the public address system did so with evi-
dence of Spanish in her pronunciation of English. Her
English was nonetheless completely grammatical and
intelligible. In the San Francisco Bay area, with its
very diverse population, there were many unfamiliar
surnames to be called, and she occasionally stumbled
over the names she was reading, as anyone might. A
woman who was sitting beside me in the jury assembly
room complained to those seated around her: “They
should not hire people who can’t speak English! Peo-
ple who don’t speak English properly shouldn’t be al-
lowed to deal with the public.” That was just one of
three such remarks I overhead that day.
4. Proposition 187 was declared to be unconstitutional in
1997 in a legal challenge brought before the federal court
in Los Angeles. Invoking the “Personal Responsibility
and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996,” the
welfare reform legislation enacted by Congress, Judge

209

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THEORY INTO PRACTICE / Autumn 2000
Children and Languages at School

M.R. Pfaelzer found in League of United Latin Ameri-
can Citizens v. Wilson, that 187 was an effort by the
state to regulate immigration by restricting access to
welfare and educational services. The regulation of
immigration is exclusively a federal responsibility, and
the state does not have the power to override federal
legislation with its “own legislative scheme to regulate
access to public benefits,” the judge declared. Former
Governor Pete Wilson appealed the decision in the
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, but he was out of of-
fice before the case was heard. It was left to the present
governor, Gray Davis, to settle the matter. In 1999,
Davis asked the court to submit the case for mediation.

The state and the opponents of 187 recently came to
terms of agreement, ending any future challenges to
the ruling.

References

Benjamin, R. (1993). The maintenance of Spanish by
Mexicano children and its function in their school
lives. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The Uni-
versity of California at Berkeley.

Cummins, J. (1996). Negotiating identities: Education
for empowerment in a diverse society. Ontario, CA:
California Association for Bilingual Education.

Fillmore, L.W. (1991a). Language and cultural issues
in early education. In S.L. Kagan (Ed.), The care
and education of America’s young children: Ob-
stacles and opportunities (The 90th yearbook of
the National Society for the Study of Education)
(pp. 30-49). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press,.

Fillmore, L.W. (1991b). When learning a second lan-
guage means losing the first. Early Childhood Re-
search Quarterly, 6, 323-346.

Fishman, J.A. (1996). What do you lose when you lose
your language? In G. Cantoni (Ed.), Stabilizing
indigenous languages (Monograph series, special
issue) (pp. 80-91). Flagstaff: Center for Excellence
in Education, Northern Arizona University:

Fishman, J.A., & Hofman, J.E. (1966). Mother tongue
and nativity in the American population. In J. A.
Fishman (Ed.), Language loyalty in the United
States (pp. 34-50). The Hague, Netherlands: Mou-
ton &Co.

Hinton, L. (1999, December). Involuntary language loss
among immigrants: Asian-American linguistic auto-
biographies. ERIC Digest, p. 3. Retrieved July 29,
2000 from the World Wide Web: http://www.cal.org/
ericcll/digest/involuntary.html,

Kouritzin, S.G. (1999). Face(t)s of first language loss.
Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Lambert, W.E. (1977). The effects of bilingualism on
the individual: Cognitive and socio-cultural con-
sequences. In P. Hornby (Ed.), Bilingualism: Psy-
chological, social and educational implications.
New York: Academic Press.

Lau v. Nichols, 414 U.S. 563, 566-69, 94 S.Ct. 786,
788-90, 39 L.Ed.2d 1 (1974)

L6pez, D.E. (1982). Language maintenance and shift
in the United States today. Los Alamitos, CA:
National Center for Bilingual Research.

Macias, R.F. (1998). Summary report of the survey of
the states’ limited English proficient students and
available educational programs and services,
1996-97. Washington, DC: National Clearinghouse
for Bilingual Education.

Olsen, L. (1997) Made in America: Immigrant students
in our public schools. New York: New Press.

Portes, A., & Hao, L. (1998). E pluribus unum: Bilin-
gualism and language loss in the second generation.
(Economics Working Paper Archive at Washington
University, St. Louis). Retrieved July 29, 2000
from the World Wide Web: http://ideas.uqam.ca/
ideas/data/Papers/wpawuwpma9805006.html

Portes, A., & Rumbault, R.G. (1990). Immigrant Amer-
ica: A portrait. Berkeley: The University of Cali-
fornia Press.

Rodriguez, R., (1982). Hunger of memory: The educa-
tion of Richard Rodriguez. Toronto and New York:
Bantam Books.

riP

210

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All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

• Contents

image 1
image 2
image 3
image 4
image 5
image 6
image 7
image 8

• Issue Table of Contents

Theory into Practice, Vol. 39, No. 4, Autumn, 2000
Volume Information [pp. 271 – 272]
Front Matter
This Issue [pp. 195 – 195]
Learning English and Learning America: Immigrants in the Center of a Storm [pp. 196 – 202]
Loss of Family Languages: Should Educators Be Concerned? [pp. 203 – 210]
Languages and Tribal Sovereignty: Whose Language Is It Anyway? [pp. 211 – 219]
Newcomer Schools: Salvation or Segregated Oblivion for Immigrant Students? [pp. 220 – 227]
Barriers to Meaningful Instruction for English Learners [pp. 228 – 236]
English Learners Reading English: What We Know, What We Need to Know [pp. 237 – 247]
Teaching through the Prism of Difference: A Dialogue among Four Bilingual, African-Ancestry Teachers [pp. 248 – 257]
Bilingualism for All: Two-Way Immersion Education in the United States [pp. 258 – 266]
Back Matter [pp. 267 – 270]

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adm135
Text Box
Anzaldua, Gloria. “How to tame a wild tongue.” In Borderlands, La Frontera. San Francisco, CA. Aunt Lute Books. 2nd edition. 1999. 1879960575. pp. 75-86.

adm135
Text Box
08/14/2014

5
How to Tame a Wild Tongue

“We’re going to have to control
your tongue,” the dentist says, pulling out all the metal from my
mouth. Silver bits plop and tinkle into the basin. My mouth is a
motherlode.

The dentist is cleaning out my
roots. I get a whiff of the stench when I gasp. “I can’t cap that
tooth yet, you’re still draining,” he says. ~

“We’re going to have to do
something about your tongue,” I hear the anger rising in his
voice. My tongue keeps pushing out the wads of cotton, pushing
back the drills, the long thin needles. “I’ve never seen anything
as strong or as stubborn,” he says. And I think, how do you tame
a wild tongue, train it to be quiet, how do you bridle and saddle
it? How do you make it lie down?

“Who is to say that robbing a people of
its language is less violent than war?”

-Ray Gwyn Smith 1

I remember being caught speaking Spanish at recess-that
was good for three licks on the knuckles with a sharp ruler. I
remember being sent to the corner of the classroom for “talking
back” to the Anglo teacher when all I was trying to do was tell her
how to pronounce my name. “If you want to be American, speak
‘American.’ If you don’t like it, go back to Mexico where you
belong.”

“I want you to speak English. Pa’ hallar buen trabajo tienes
que saber hablar el ingles bien. Que vale toda tu educaci6n si

76
How to Tame a Wild Tongue

todavfa bablas ingles con un ‘accent,”‘ my mother would say,
mortified that I spoke English like a Mexican. At Pan American
University, I, and all Chicano students were required to take two
speech classes. Their purpose: to get rid of our accents.

Attacks on one’s form of expression with the intent to cen-
sor are a violation of the First Amendment. El Anglo con cara de
inocente nos arranc6 la lengua. Wild tongues can’t be tamed,
they can only be cut out.

Overcoming the Tradition o

f Silence

Ahogadas, escupimos el oscuro.
Peleando con nuestra propia sombra
el silencio nos sepulta.

En boca cerrada no entran moscas. “Flies don’t enter a
closed mouth” is a saying I kept hearing when I was a child. Ser
babladora was to be a gossip and a liar, to talk too much.
Mucbacbitas bien criadas, well-bred girls don’t answer back Es
una falta de respeto to talk back to one’s mother or father. I
remember one of the sins I’d recite to the priest in the confession
box the few times I went to confession: talking back to my moth-
er, bablar pa’ ‘trds, repelar. Hocicona, repelona, cbismosa, hav-
ing a big mouth, questioning, carrying tales are all signs of being
mal criada. In my culture they are all words that are derogatory
if applied to women-I’ve never heard them applied to men.

The first time I heard two women, a Puerto Rican and a
Cuban, say the word “nosotras,” I was shocked. I had not known
the word existed. Chicanas use nosotros whether we’re male or
female. We are robbed of our female being by the masculine
plural. Language is a male discourse.

And our tongues have become
dry the wilderness has
dried out our tongues and
we have forgotten speech.

-Irena Klepfisz2

Even our own people, other Spanish speakers nos quieren
poner candados en la boca. They would hold us back with their
bag of reglas de academia.

l
I
I
j

76
me a Wild Tongue

‘4n ‘accent,”‘ my mother would say,
;h like a Mexican. At Pan American
students were required to take two
e: to get rid of our accents.
f expression with the intent to cen-
t Amendment. El Anglo con cara de
igua. Wild tongues can’t be tamed,

f Silence

oscuro.
ropia sombra

ritran moscas. “Flies don’t enter a
ept hearing when I was a child. Ser
ssip and a liar, to talk too much.
V”ell-bred girls don’t answer back Es
: back to one’s mother or father. I
recite to the priest in the confession
:onfession: talking back to my moth-
Hocicona, repelona, chismosa, hav-
, carrying tales are all signs of being
ey are all words that are derogatory
!Ver heard them applied to men.

:wo women, a Puerto Rican and a
iS,” I was shocked. I had not known
ise nosotros whether we’re male or
mr female being by the masculine
scourse.

s have become
lerness has
ngues and
en speech.
epfisz2

>ther Spanish speakers nos quieren
They would hold us back with their

77
How to Tame a Wild Tongue

Oye como ladra: el lenguaje de la frontera

Quien tiene boca se equivoca.

-Mexican

saying

“Pocbo, cultural traitor, you’re speaking the oppressor’s lan-
guage by speaking English, you’re ruining the Spanish language,”
I have been accused by various Latinos and Latinas. Chicano
Spanish is considered by the purist and by most Latinos deficient,
a mutilation of Spanish.

But Chicano Spanish is a border tongue which developed
naturally. Change, evoluci6n, enriquecimiento de palabras
nuevas por invenci6n o adopci6n have created variants of
Chicano Spanish, un nuevo lenguaje. Un lenguaje que corre-
sponde a un modo de vivir. Chicano Spanish is not incorrect, it
is a living language.

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 entirely identify with either stan-
dard (formal, Castillian) Spanish nor standard English, what
recourse is left to them but to create their own language? A lan-
guage which they can connect t~eir identity to, one capable of
communicating the realities and values true to themselves-a lan-
guage with terms that are neither espaiiol ni ingles, but both. We
speak a patois, a forked tongue, a variation of two languages.

Chicano Spanish sprang out of the Chicanos’ need to identi-
fy ourselves as a distinct people. We needed a language with
which we could communicate with ourselves, a secret language.
For some of us, language is a homeland closer than the
Southwest-for many Chicanos today live in the Midwest and the
East. And because we are a complex, heterogeneous people, we
speak many languages. Some of the languages we speak are:

1. Standard English
2. Working class and slang English
3. Standard Spanish
4. Standard Mexican Spanish
5. North Mexican Spanish dialect
6. Chicano Spanish (Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and

California have regional variations)
7. Tex-Mex
8. Pacbuco (called cal6)

78
How to Tame a Wild Tongue

~:C My “home” tongues are the languages I speak with my sister
and brothers; with my friends. They are the last five listed, with
6 and 7 being closest to my heart. From school, the media and
job situations, I’ve picked up standard and working class English.
From Mamagrande Locha and from reading Spanish and Mexican
literature, I’ve picked up Standard Spanish and Standard Mexican
Spanish. From los recten llegados, Mexican immigrants, and
braceros, I learned the North Mexican dialect. With Mexicans I’ll
try to speak either Standard Mexican Spanish or the North
Mexican dialect. From my parents and Chicanos living. in the
Valley, I picked up Chicano Texas Spanish, and I speak it with my
mom, younger brother (who married a Mexican and who rarely
mixes Spanish with English), aunts and older relatives.

With Chicanas from Nuevo Mexico or Arizona I will speak
Chicano Spanish a little, but often they don’t understand what
I’m saying. With most California Chicanas I speak entirely in
English (unless I forget). When I first moved to San Francisco, I’d
rattle off something in Spanish, unintentionally embarrassing
them. Often it is only with another Chicana tejana that I can talk
freely. ~

Words distorted by English are known as anglicisms or
pochismos. The pocho is an anglicized Mexican or American of
Mexican origin who speaks Spanish with an accent characteristic
of North Americans and who distorts and reconstructs the lan-
guage according to the influence of English. 3 Tex-Mex, or
Spanglish, comes most naturally to me. I may switch back and
forth from English to Spanish in the same sentence or in the same
word. With my sister and my brother Nunt,: and with Chicano
tejano contemporaries I speak in Tex-Mex.
~om kids and people my own age I picked up Pacbuco.
1!:f!’cm~yo (the language of the zoot suiters) is a language of rebel-
lion,—both against Standard Spanish and Standard English. It is a
secret language. Adults of the culture and outsiders cannot
understand it. It is made up of slang words from both English and
Spanish. Ruca means girl or woman, vato means guy or dude,
chale means no, sim6n means yes, churo is sure, talk is
periquiar, pigionear means petting, que gacho means how
nerdy, ponte aguila means watch out, death is called la pelona.
Through lack of practice and not having others who can speak it,
I’ve lost most of the Pacbuco tongue.

r

78
ne a Wild Tongue

ie languages I speak with my sister
1. They are the last five listed, with
ieart. From school, the media and
standard and working class English.
from reading Spanish and Mexican
dard Spanish and Standard Mexican
‘!gados, Mexican immigrants, and
Mexican dialect. With Mexicans I’ll
l Mexican Spanish or the North
arents and Chicanos living in the
xas Spanish, and I speak it with my
married a Mexican and who rarely
mnts and older relatives.
‘JO Mexico or Arizona I will speak
often they don’t understand what
1rnia Chicanas I speak entirely in
1 I first moved to San Francisco, I’d
ish, unintentionally embarrassing
>ther Chicana tejana that I can talk

‘ lish are known as anglicisms or
nglicized Mexican or American of
anish with an accent characteristic
distorts and reconstructs the lan-

luence of English.3 Tex-Mex, or
lly to me. I may switch back and
ri the same sentence or in the same
· brother Nuns: and with Chicano
: in Tex-Mex.
y own age I picked up Pacbuco.
mot suiters) is a language of rebel-
anish and Standard English. It is a
~e culture and outsiders cannot
slang words from both English and
woman, vato means guy or dude,
ans yes, cburo is sure, talk is
petting, que gacbo means how
tch out, death is called la pelona.
ot having others who can speak it,
ongue.

79
How to Tame a Wild Tongue

Chicano Spanish

Chicanos, after 250 years of Spanish/Anglo colonization have
developed significant differences in the Spanish we speak. We col-
lapse two adjacent vowels into a single syllable and sometimes
shift the stress in certain words such as maiz/maiz, cobete/
cuete. We leave out certain consonants when they appear between
vowels: lado/lao, mojado/mojao. Chicanos from South Texas pro- .. ·
nounced/asj as injue (jue). Chicanos use “archaisms,” words that
are no longer in the Spanish language, words that have been
evolved out. We say semos, truje, baiga, ansina, and naiden. We
retain the “archaic”}, as injalar, that derives from an earlier h, (the
French balar or the Germanic halon which was lost to standard
Spanish in the 16th century), but which is still found in several
regional dialects such as the one spoken in South Texas. (Due to
geography, Chicanos from the Valley of South Texas were cut off
linguistically from other Spanish speakers. We tend to use words
that the Spaniards brought over from Medieval Spain. The majori-
ty of the Spanish colonizers in Mexico and the Southwest came
from Extremadura-Herniin Cortes was one ~of them-and
Andalucia. Andalucians pronounce 11 like a y, and their d’s tend to
be absorbed by adjacent vowels: tirado becomes tirao. They.· ~ “·
brought el lenguaje popular, dialectos y regionalismos. 4) ·

Chicanos and other Spanish speakers also shift ll to y and
z to s. 5 We leave out initial syllables, saying tar for es tar, toy for
estoy, bora for ahora (cubanos and puertorriqueflos also leave
out initial letters of some words.) We also leave out the final sylla-
ble such as pa for para. The intervocalic y, the ll as in tortilla, ella,
botella, gets replaced by tortia or tortiya, ea, botea. We add an
additional syllable at the beginning of certain words: atocar for
tocar, agastar for gastar. Sometimes we’ll say lavaste las vacijas,
other times lavates (substituting the ates verb endings for the aste).

We use anglicisms, words borrowed from English: bola from
ball, carpeta from carpet, machina de lavar (instead of lavado-
ra) from washing machine. Tex-Mex argot, created by adding a
Spanish sound at the beginning or end of an English word such
as cookiar for cook, watcbar for watch, parkiar for park, and
rapiar for rape, is the result of the pressures on Spanish speak-
ers to adapt to English.

We don’t use the word vosotros/as or its accompanying
verb form. We don’t say claro (to mean yes), imaginate, or me

80

How to Tame a Wild Tongue

. emociona, unless we pj,cked up Spanish from Latinas, out of a
book, or in a classroo~ther Spanish-speaking groups are going
through the same, or similar, development in their Spanish/;

Linguistic Terrorism

Deslenguadas. Somos los del espafl.ol deficiente. We are
your linguistic nightmare, your linguistic aberration, your
linguistic mesttzaje, the subject of your burla. Because we
speak with tongues of fire we are culturally crucified.
Racially, culturally and linguistically somos huerfanos-we
speak an orphan tongue.

Chicanas who grew up speaking Chicano Spanish have inter-
nalized the belief that we speak poor Spanish. It is illegitimate, a
bastard language. And because we internalize how our language
has been used against us by the dominant culture, we use our lan-
guage differences against each other.

Chicana feminists often skirt around each other with suspi-
cion and hesitation. For the longest time I couldn’t figure it out.
ThenJtdawned on me. To be close to another Chicana is like
lookfug into the mirror. We are afraid of what we’ll see there.
Pena. Shame. Low estimation of self. In childhood we are told
that our language is wrong. Repeated attacks on our native
tongue diminish our sense of self. The attacks continue through-
out our lives.

Chicanas feel uncomfortable talking in Spanish to Latinas,
afraid of their censure. Their language was not outlawed in their
countries. They had a whole lifetime of being immersed in their
native tongue; generations, centuries in which Spanish was a
first language, taught in school, heard on radio and TY, and read
in the newspaper.

If a person, Chicana or Latina, has a low estimation of my
native tongue, she also has a low estimation of me. Often with
mextcanas y latinas we’ll speak English as a neutral language.
Even among Chicanas we tend to speak English at parties or con-
ferences. Yet, at the same time, we’re afraid the other will think
we’re agrtngadas because we don’t speak Chicano Spanish. We
oppress each other trying to out-Chicano each other, vying to be
the “real” Chicanas, to speak like Chicanos. There is no one
Chicano language just as there is no one Chicano experience. A

80

‘ame a Wild Tongue

d up Spanish from Latinas, out of a
er Spanish-speaking groups are going
·, development in their Spanish. ~

,/

los del espafiol deficiente. We are
re, your linguistic aberration, your
: subject of your burla. Because we
f fire we are culturally crucified.
linguistically somos huerfanos-we

peaking Chicano Spanish have inter-
!ak poor Spanish. It is illegitimate, a
.se we internalize how our language
1.e dominant culture, we use our lan-
:h other.
skirt around each other with suspi-
longest time I couldn’t figure it out.
be close to another Chicana is like
are afraid of what we’ll see there.

n of self. In childhood we are told
. Repeated attacks on our native
self. The attacks continue through-

:able talking in Spanish to Latinas,
language was not outlawed in their
lifetime of being immersed in their
centuries in which Spanish was a
ol, heard on radio and TY, and read

Latina, has a low estimation of my
low estimation of me. Often with

>eak English as a neutral language.
J to speak English at parties or con-
.e, we’re afraid the other will think
! don’t speak Chicano Spanish. We
mt-Chicano each other, vying to be
• like Chicanos. There is no one
e is no one Chicano experience. A

81
How to Tame a Wild Tongue

monolingual Chicana whose first language is English or Spanish
is just as much a Chicana as one who speaks several variants of
Spanish. A Chicana from Michigan or Chicago or Detroit is just as
much a Chicana as one from the Southwest. Chicano Spanish is
as diverse linguistically as it is regionally.

By the end of this century, Spanish speakers will comprise
the biggest minority group in the U.S., a country where students
in high schools and colleges are encouraged to take French class-
es because French is considered more “cultured.” But for a lan-
guage to remain alive it must be used. 6 By the end of this centu-
ry English, and not Spanish, will be the mother tongue of most
Chicanos and Latinos.

So, if you want to really hurt me, talk badly about my lan-
guage. Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity-I am my
language. Until I can take pride in my language, I cannot take
pride in myself. Until I can accept as legitimate Chicano Texas
Spanish, Tex-Mex and all the other languages I speak, I cannot
accept the legitimacy of myself. Until I am fre~ to write bilin-
gually and to switch codes without having always to translate,
while I still have to speak English or Spanish when I would rather
speak Spanglish, and as long as I have to accommodate the
English speakers rather than having them accommodate me, my
tongue will be illegitimate.

I will no longer be made to feel ashamed of existing. I will
have my voice: Indian, Spanish, white. I will have my serpent’s
tongue-my woman’s voice, my sexual voice, my poet’s voice. I
will overcome the tradition of silence.

My fingers
move sly against your palm
Like women everywhere, we speak in code.

-Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz7

“Vistas,” corridos, y comida: My Native Tongue

In the 1960s, I read my first Chicano novel. It was City of
Night by John Rechy, a gay Texan, son of a Scottish father and a
Mexican mother. For days I walked around in stunned amaze-
ment that a Chicano could write and could get published. When
I read I Am joaqufn8 I was surprised to see a bilingual book by

82

How to Tame a Wild Tongue

a Chicano in print. When I saw poetry written in Tex-Mex for the
first time, a feeling of pure joy flashed through me. I felt like we
really existed as a people. In 1971, when I started teaching High
School English to Chicano students, I tried to supplement the
required texts with works by Chicanos, only to be reprimanded
and forbidden to do so by the principal. He claimed that I was
supposed to teach “American” and English literature. At the risk
of being fired, I swore my students to secrecy and slipped in
Chicano short stories, poems, a play. In graduate school, while
working toward a Ph.D., I had to “argue” with one advisor after
the other, semester after semester, before I was allowed to make
Chicano literature an area of focus.

Even before I read books by Chicanos or Mexicans, it was
the Mexican movies I saw at the drive-in-the Thursday night
special of $1.00 a carload-that gave me a sense of belonging.
“Vamonos a las vistas,” my mother would call out and we’d
all-grandmother, brothers, sister and cousins-squeeze into
the car. We’d wolf down cheese and bologna white bread sand-
wiches while watching Pedro Infante in melodramatic tear-jerk-
ers like Nosotros los pobres, the first “real” Mexican movie (that
was not an imitation of European movies). I remember seeing
Cuando los hijos se van and surmising that all Mexican movies
played up the love a mother has for her children and what
ungrateful sons and daughters suffer when they are not devoted
to their mothers. I remember the singing-type “westerns” of
Jorge Negrete and Miguel Aceves Mejia. When watching Mexican
movies, I felt a sense of homecoming as well as alienation.
People who were to amount to something didn’t go to Mexican
movies, or bailes or tune their radios to bolero, rancherita, and
corrido music.

The whole time I was growing up, there was nortefio music
sometimes called North Mexican border music, or Tex-Mex
music, or Chicano music, or cantina (bar) music. I grew up lis-
tening to conjuntos, three- or four-piece bands made up of folk
musicians playing guitar, bajo sexto, drums and button accor-
dion, which Chicanos had borrowed from the German immi-
grants who had come to Central Texas and Mexico to farm and
build breweries. In the Rio Grande Valley, Steve Jordan and Little
Joe Hernandez were popular, and Flaco Jimenez was the accor-
dion king. The rhythms ofTex-Mex music are those of the polka,

r
I

82

>Tame a Wild Tongue

I saw poetry written in Tex-Mex for the
:: joy flashed through me. I felt like we
In 1971, when I started teaching High

o students, I tried to supplement the
: by Chicanos, only to be reprimanded
v the principal. He claimed that I was
can” and English literature. At the risk
iy students to secrecy and slipped in
ems, a play. In graduate school, while
[had to “argue” with one advisor after
:emester, before I was allowed to make
of focus.

ooks by Chicanos or Mexicans, it was
w at the drive-in-the Thursday night
I-that gave me a sense of belonging.
my mother would call out and we’d
rs, sister and cousins-squeeze into
cheese and bologna white bread sand-
::dro Infante in melodramatic tear-jerk-
·es, the first “real” Mexican movie (that
luropean movies). I remember seeing
and surmising that all Mexican movies
other has for her children and what
iters suffer when they are not devoted
ember the singing-type “westerns” of
Aceves Mejia. When watching Mexican
f homecoming as well as alienation.
Lint to something didn’t go to Mexican
their radios to bolero, rancherita, and

•growing up, there was nortefio music
Mexican border music, or Tex-Mex
or cantina (bar) music. I grew up lis-

:- or four-piece bands made up of folk
bajo sexto, drums and button accor-
td borrowed from the German immi-
Central Texas and Mexico to farm and
o Grande Valley, Steve Jordan and Llttle
ilar, and Flaco Jimenez was the accor-
f Tex-Mex music are those of the polka,

83
How to Tame a Wild Tongue

also adapted from the Germans, who in turn had borrowed the
polka from the Czechs and Bohemians.

I remember the hot, sultry evenings when corridos-songs
of love and death on the Texas-Mexican borderlands-reverberat-
ed out of cheap amplifiers from the local cantinas and wafted in
through my bedroom window.

Corridos first became widely used along the South Texas/
Mexican border during the early conflict between Chicanos and
Anglos. The corridos are usually about Mexican heroes who do
valiant deeds against the Anglo oppressors. Pancho Villa’s song,
“La cucaracha,” is the most famous one. Corridos of John E
Kennedy and his death are still very popular in the Valley. Older
Chicanos remember Lydia Mendoza, one of the great border
corrido singers who was called la Gloria de Tejas. Her “El tango
negro,” sung during the Great Depression, made her a singer of
the people. The everpresent corridos narrated one hundred ·
years of border history, bringing news of events as well as enter-
taining. These folk musicians and folk songs are our chief cultural ;
mythmakers, and they made our hard lives seem bearable.

I grew up feeling ambivalent about our ~music. Country-
western and rock-and-roll had more status. In the 50s and 60s,
for the slightly educated and agringado Chicanos, there existed
a sense of shame at being caught listening to our music. Yet I
couldn’t stop my feet from thumping to the music, could not
stop humming the words, nor hide from myself the exhilaration
I felt when I heard it.

There are more subtle ways that we internalize identifica-
tion, especially in the forms of images and emotions. For me
food and certain smells are tied to my identity, to my homeland.
Woodsmoke curling up to an immense blue sky; woodsmoke per-
fuming my grandmother’s clothes, her skin. The stench of cow
manure and the yellow patches on the ground; the crack of a .22
rifle and the reek of cordite. Homemade white cheese sizzling in
a pan, melting inside a folded tortilla. My sister Hilda’s hot, spicy
menudo, cbile colorado making it deep red, pieces of panza and
hominy floating on top. My brother Carita barbecuing/ajitas in
the backyard. Even now and 3,000 miles away, I can see my
mother spicing the ground beef, pork and venison with chile. My
mouth salivates at the thought of the hot steaming tamales I
would be eating if I were home.

84
How to Tame a Wild Tongue

Si le preguntas a mi mama, “~Que eres?”

“Identity is the essential core of who
we are as individuals, the conscious
experience of the self inside.”

-Kaufman9

Nosotros los Chicanos straddle the borderlands. On one side
of us, we are constantly exposed to the Spanish of the Mexicans,
on the other side we hear the Anglos’ incessant clamoring so that
we forget our language. Among ourselves we don’t say nosotros
los americanos, o nosotros los espaiioles, o nosotros los his-
panos. We say nosotros los mexicanos (by mexicanos we do not
mean citizens of Mexico; we do not mean a national identity, but
a racial one). We distinguish between mexicanos del otro lado
and mexicanos de este lado. Deep in our hearts we believe that
being Mexican has nothing to do with which country one lives
in. Being Mexican is a state of soul-not one of mind, not one of
citizenship. Neither eagle nor serpent, but both. And like the
ocean, neither animal respects borders.

Dime con quien andas y te dire quien eres.
(Tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who
you are.)

-Mexican saying

Si le preguntas a mi mama, “iQue eres?” te dira, “Soy
mexicana.” My brothers and sister say the same. I sometimes
will answer “soy mexicana” and at others will say “soy Chicana”
o “soy tejana.” But I identified as “Raza” before I ever identified
as “mexicana” or “Chicana.”

As a culture, we call ourselves Spanish when referring to
ourselves as a linguistic group and when copping out. It is then
that we forget our predominant Indian genes. We are 70 to 80%
Indian. 1 O We call ourselves Hispanic 11 or Spanish-American or
Latin American or Latin when linking ourselves to other Spanish-
speaking peoples of the Western hemisphere and when copping
out. We call ourselves Mexican-American 12 to signify we are nei-
ther Mexican nor American, but more the noun “American” than
the adjective “Mexican” (and when copping out).

84
ie a Wild Tongue

“1Que eres?”

essential core of who
duals, the conscious
ie self inside.”
19

tddle the borderlands. On one side
ed to the Spanish of the Mexicans,
\.nglos’ incessant clamoring so that
tg ourselves we don’t say nosotros
‘os espanoles, o nosotros los his-
·xicanos (by mexicanos we do not
o not mean a national identity, but
)etween mexicanos de/ otro /ado
)eep in our hearts we believe that
do with which country one lives
soul-not one of mind, not one of
r serpent, but both. And like the
: borders.

i andas y te dire quien eres.
ur friends are and I’ll tell you who

saying

iama, ‘~·Que eres?” te dira, “Soy
sister say the same. I sometimes
d at others will say “soy Chicana”
as “Raza” before I ever identified

selves Spanish when referring to
and when copping out. It is then
Lt Indian genes. We are 70 to 80%
is panic 11 or Spanish-American or
inking ourselves to other Spanish-
rn hemisphere and when copping
t-American 12 to signify we are nei-
lt more the noun “American” than
hen copping out).

85
How to Tame a Wild Tongue

Chicanos and other people of color suffer economically for

not acculturating. This voluntary (yet forced) alienation makes

for psychological conflict, a kind of dual identity-we don’t iden-

tify with the Anglo-American cultural values and we don’t totally

identify with the Mexican cultural values. We are a synergy of

two cultures with various degrees of Mexicanness or Angloness.

I have so internalized the borderland conflict that sometimes I

feel like one cancels out the other and we are zero, nothing, no

one. A veces no soy nada ni nadie. Pero hasta cuando no lo soy,

lo soy.
When not copping out, when we know we are more than

nothing, we call ourselves Mexican, referring to race and ances-

try; mestizo when affirming both our Indian and Spanish (but we

hardly ever own our Black ancestry); Chicano when referring to

a politically aware people born and/or raised in the U.S.; Raza

when referring to Chicanos; tejanos when we are Chicanos from

Texas.
Chicanos did not know we were a people until 1965 when

Cesar Chavez and the farmworkers united and I Am Joaquin was

published and la Raza Unida party was formed fh Texas. With
that recognition, we became a distinct people. Something

momentous happened to the Chicano soul-we became aware of

our reality and acquired a name and a language (Chicano

Spanish) that reflected that reality. Now that we had a name,

some of the fragmented pieces began to fall together-who we

were, what we were, how we had evolved. We began to get

glimpses of what we might eventually become.

Yet the struggle of identities continues, the struggle of bor-

ders is our reality still. One day the inner struggle will cease and

a true integration take place. In the meantime, tenemos que hac-

erla lucha. lQuien esta protegiendo los ranchos de mi gente?

lQuien esta tratando de cerrar la fisura entre la tndia y el

blanco en nuestra sangre? El Chicano, si, el Chicano que anda

como un ladr6n en su propia casa.

Los Chicanos, how patient we seem, how very patient.

There is the quiet of the Indian about us.13 We know how to sur-

vive. When other races have given up their tongue, we’ve kept

ours. We know what it is to live under the hammer blow of the

dominant norteamericano culture. But more than we count the

blows, we count the days the weeks the years the centuries the

86
How to Tame a Wild Tongue

eons until the white laws and commerce and customs will rot in

the deserts they’ve created, lie bleached. Humildes yet proud,

qutetos yet wild, nosotros los mextcanos-Chicanos will walk by

the crumbling ashes as we go about our business. Stubborn, per-

severing, impenetrable as stone, yet possessing a malleability that

renders us unbreakable, we, the mestizas and mestizos, will

remain.

T

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Text Box
Pratt, Mary Louise. Arts of the contact zone. In Ways of Reading, An Anthology for Writers. Boston, MA, Bedford/St. Martin’s. 6th ed., 200

2.

0312258976. pp. 605-623

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Text Box
08/23/2010

MARY LOUISE
PRATT

M ARY LOUISE PRATT (b. 1948) grw up in Listowel, Ontario, a srruzll Canadian farm town. She got her B.A. at the University of Toronto and
her Ph.D. from Stanford University, where she is now a professor in the depart­
ments of comparative literature and Spanish and Portuguese. At Stanford, she
was one of the cofounders of the nw freshman culture program, a controversial
series of required courses that replaced the old Western civilization core courses.
The course she is particularly associated with is called “Europe and the Ameri­
cas”; it brings together European representations of the Americas with indige­
nous American texts. As you might guess from the essay that follows, the nw
program at Stanford expands the range of countries, languages, cultures, and
texts that are seen as a necessary introduction to the world; it also, however, re­
vises the very idea of culture that many of us take for granted-particularly the
idea that culture, at its best, expresses common values in acommon language.

Pratt is the author ofToward a Speech Act Theory of Literary Discourse
(1977) and coauthor of Women, Culture, and Politics in Latin America
(1990), the textbook Linguistics for Students of Literature (1980), Amor
Brujo: The Images and Culture of Love in the Andes (1990), and Imperial
Eyes: Studies in Travel Writing and Transculturation (1992). The essay that
follows was revised to seroe as the introduction to Imperial Eyes, which is par­
ticularly about European travel writing in the eighteenth and nineteenth

604

Contact Zone 605

)UISE
~T

up in Listowel, Ontario, a small
at the University of Toronto and
is now a professor in the depart­
nd Portuguese. At Stanford, she
culture program, a controversial
/lfestern civilization core courses.
5 called “Europe and the Ameri­
ns of the Americas with indige­
I the essay tlult follows, the new
:ntries, languages, cultures, and
a the world; it also, however, re­
Ike for granted-particularly the
alues in a common language.
t Theory of Literary Discourse
1d Politics in Latin America
s of Literature (1980), Amor
1e Andes (1990), and Imperial
lturation (1992). The essay tlult
to Imperial Eyes, which is par­
the eighteenth and nineteenth

centuries, when Europe was “discovering” Africa and the Americas. It argues
tlult travel writing produced “the rest of the world” for European readers. It
didn’t “report” on Africa or South America; it produced an “Africa” or an
“America” for European consumption. Travel writing produced places tlult could
be thought of as barren, empty, undeveloped, inconceivable, needful of European
influence and control, ready to serve European industrial, intellectual, and com­
mercial interests. The reports of travelers or, later, scientists and anthropologists
are part of a more general process by which the emerging industrial nations took
possession of new territory.

The European understanding of Peru, for example, came through European
accounts, not from attempts to understand or elicit responses from Andeans, Pe­
ruvian natives. When such a response was delivered, when an Andean, Guaman
Poma, wrote to King Philip 1II of Spain, his letter was unreadable. Pratt is inter­
ested in just those moments of contact between peoples and cultures. She is inter­
ested in how King Philip read (or failed to read) a letter from Peru, but also in
how someone like Guaman Poma prepared himself to write to the king of Spain.
To fix these moments, she makes use of a phrase she coined, the “contact zone,

”

which, she says,

I use to refer to the space of colonial encounters, the space in which
peoples geographically and historically separated come into contact
with each other and establish ongoing relations, usually involving
conditions ofcoercion, radical inequality, and intractable conflict. …
By using the term “contact,” I aim to foreground the interactive, im­
provisational dimensions of colonial encounters so easily ignored or
suppressed by diffusionist accounts of conquest and domination. A
“contact” perspective emplulsizes how subjects are constituted in and
by their relations to each other. It treats the relations among coloniz­
ers and colonized, or travelers and “travelees,” not in terms of sepa­
rateness or apartheid, but in terms of copresence, interaction, inter­
locking understandings and practices.

Like Adrienne Rich’s “When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision” (and,
for that matter, Clifford Geertz’s “Deep Play”), “Arts of the Contact Zone” was
first written as a lecture. It was delivered as a keynote address at the second Mod­
ern Language Association Literacy Conference, held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
in 1990.

Arts of the Contact Zone

Whenever the subject of literacy comes up, what often pops first into
my mind is a conversation I overheard eight years ago between my son
Sam and his best friend, Willie, aged six and seven, respectively: “Why
don’t you trade me Many Trails for Carl Yats … Yesits … Ya-strum­

i I

–606

MARY LOUISE PRAIT

scrum.” “That’s not how you say it, dummy, it’s Carl Yes … Yes … oh,
I don’t know.” Sam and Willie had just discovered baseball cards. Many
Trails was their decoding, with the help of first-grade English phonics,
of the name Manny Trillo. The name they were quite rightly stumped
on was Carl Yastremski. That was the first time I remembered seeing
them put their incipient literacy to their own use, and I was of course
thrilled.

Sam and Willie learned a lot about phonics that year by trying to deci­
pher surnames on baseball cards, and a lot about cities, states, heights,
weights, places of birth, stages of life. In the years that followed, I watched
Sam apply his arithmetic skills to working out batting averages and sub­
tracting retirement years from rookie years; I watched him develop senses
of patterning and order by arranging and rearranging his cards for hours
on end, and aesthetic judgment by comparing different photos, different
series, layouts, and color schemes. American geography and history took
shape in his mind through baseball cards. Much of his social life revolved
around trading them, and he learned about exchange, fairness, trust, the
importance of processes as opposed to results, what it means to get
cheated, taken advantage of, even robbed. Baseball cards were the me­
dium of his economic life too. Nowhere better to learn the power and arbi­
trariness of money, the absolute divorce between use value and exchange
value, notions of long- and short-term investment, the possibility of per­
sonal values that are independent of market values.

Baseball cards meant baseball card shows, where there was much to be
learned about adult worlds as well. And baseball cards opened the door to
baseball books, shelves and shelves of encyclopedias, magazines, histo­
ries, biographies, novels, books of jokes, anecdotes, cartoons, even poems.
Sam learned the history of American racism and the struggle against it
through baseball; he saw the Depression and two world wars from behind
home plate. He learned the meaning of commodified labor, what it means
for one’s body and talents to be owned and dispensed by another. He
knows something about Japan, Taiwan, Cuba, and Central America and
how men and boys do things there. Through the history and experience of
baseball stadiums he thought about architecture, light, wind, topography,
mete9rology, the dynamics of public space. He learned the meaning of ex­
pertise, of knowing about something well enough that you can start a’con­
versation with a stranger and feel sure of holding your own. Even with an
adult–especially with an adult. Throughout his preadolescent years,
baseball history was Sam’s luminous point of contact with grown-ups, his
lifeline to caring. And, of course, all this time he was also playing baseball,
struggling his way through the stages of the local Uttle League system,
lucky enough to be a pretty good player, loving the game and coming to
know deeply his strengths and weaknesses.

Uteracy began for Sam with the newly pronounceable names on the
picture cards and brought him what has been easily the broadest, most
varied, most enduring, and most integrated experience of his thirteen-year

Arts aftl

life. Lik.
tools wi
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How

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that thE
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607MARY LOUISE PRA IT Arts of the Contact Zone

y, it’s Carl Yes … Yes … oh,
:overed baseball cards. Many
: first-grade English phonics,
were quite rightly stumped

,t time I remembered seeing
.vn use, and I was of course

cs that year by trying to deci­
about cities, states, heights,

‘ears that followed, I watched
ut batting averages and sub­
watched him develop senses
lrl’anging his cards for hours
19 different photos, different
geography and history took

lch of his social life revolved
exchange, fairness, trust, the
lUltS, what it means to get
3aseball cards were the me­
. to learn the power and arbi­
‘een use value and exchange
ment, the possibility of per­
alues.
where there was much to be
>all cards opened the door to
:lopedias, magazines, histo­
:lotes, cartoons, even poems.
and the struggle against it

wo world wars from behind
odified labor, what it means

dispensed by another. He
i, and Central America and
le history and experience of
re, light, wind, topography,
! learned the meaning of ex­
Igh that you can start a con­
ing your own. Even with an
t his preadolescent years,
:ontact with grown-ups, his
e was also playing baseball,
local Little League system,
19 the game and coming to

onounceable names on the
1 easily the broadest, most
lerience of his thirteen-year

life. Like many parents, I was delighted to see schooling give Sam the
tools with which to find and open all these doors. At the same time

I

found it unforgivable that schooling itself gave him nothing remotely as
meaningful to do, let alone anything that would actually take him beyond
the referential, masculinist ethos of baseball and its lore .

However, I was not invited here to speak as a parent, nor as an expert
on literacy. I was asked to speak as an MLA [Modem Language Associa­
tion] member working in the elite academy. In that capacity my contribu­
tion is undoubtedly supposed to be abstract, irrelevant, and anchored out­
side the real world. I wouldn’t dream of disappointing anyone. I propose
immediately to head back several centuries to a text that has a few points
in common with baseball cards and raises thoughts about what Tony
Sarmiento, in his comments to the conference, called new visions of liter­
acy. In 1908 a Peruvianist named Richard Pietschmann was exploring in
the Danish Royal Archive in Copenhagen and came across a manuscript.
It was dated in the city of Cuzco in Peru, in the year 1613, some forty years
after the final fall of the Inca empire to the Spanish and signed with an un­
mistakably Andean indigenous name: Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala.
Written in a mixture of Quechua and ungrammatical, expressive Spanish,
the manuscript was a letter addressed by an unknown but apparently lit­
erate Andean to King Philip III of Spain. What stunned Pietschmann was
that the letter was twelve hundred pages long. There were almost eight
hundred pages of written text and four hundred of captioned line draw­
ings. It was titled The First New Chronicle and Good Government. No one
knew (or knows) how the manuscript got to the library in Copenhagen or
how long it had been there. No one, it appeared, had ever bothered to
read it or figured out how. Quechua was not thought of as a written lan­
guage in 1908, nor Andean culture as a literate culture.

Pietschmann prepared a paper on his find, which he presented in Lon­
don in 1912, a year after the rediscovery of Machu Picchu by Hiram
Bingham. Reception, by an international congress of Americanists, was
apparently confused. It took twenty-five years for a facsimile edition of
the work to appear in Paris. It was not till the late 1970s, as positivist read­
ing habits gave way to interpretive studies and colonial elitisms to post­
colonial pluralisms, that Western scholars found ways of reading Guaman
Poma’s New Chronicle and Good Government as the extraordinary intercul­
tural tour de force that it was. The letter got there, only 350 years too late,
a miracle and a terrible tragedy.

I propose to say a few more words about this erstwhile unreadable
text, in order to layout some thoughts about writing and literacy in what I
like to call the contact zones. I use this term to refer to social spaces where
cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of
highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or
their aftermaths as they are lived out in many parts of the world today.
Eventually I will use the term to reconsider the models of community that
many of us rely on in teaching and theorizing and that are under

608 MARY loUISE PRA’IT

challenge today. But first a little more about Guaman Poma’s giant letter
to Philip III.

Insofar as anything is known about him at all, Guaman Poma exempli­
fied the sociocultural complexities produced by conquest and empire. He
was an indigenous Andean who claimed noble Inca descent and who had
adopted (at least in some sense) Christianity. He may have worked in the
Spanish colonial administration as an interpreter, scribe, or assistant to a
Spanish tax collector-as a mediator, in short. He says he learned to write
from his half brother, a mestizo whose Spanish father had given him ac­
cess to religious education.

Guaman Poma’s letter to the king is written in two languages (Spanish
and Quechua) and two parts. The first is called the Nueva cor6nica, “New
Chronicle.” The title is important. The chronicle of course was the main
writing apparatus through which the Spanish presented their American
conquests to themselves. It constituted one of the main official discourses.
In writing a “new chronicle,” Guaman Poma took over the official Spanish
genre for his own ends. Those ends were, roughly, to construct a new pic­
ture of the world, a picture of a Christian world with Andean rather than
European peoples at the center of it-Cuzco, not Jerusalem. In the New
Chronicle Guaman Poma begins by rewriting the Christian history of the
world from Adam and Eve (Fig. 1 [po 609]), incorporating the Amerindi­
ans into it as offspring of one of the sons of Noah. He identifies five ages
of Christian history that he links in parallel with the five ages of canonical
Andean history-separate but equal trajectories that diverge with Noah
and reintersect not with Columbus but with Saint Bartholomew, claimed
to have preceded Columbus in the Americas. In a couple of hundred
pages, Guaman Poma constructs a veritable encyclopedia of Inca and pre­
Inca history, customs, laws, social forms, public offices, and dynastic lead­
ers. The depictions resemble European manners and customs description,
but also reproduce the meticulous detail with which knowledge in Inca
society was stored on quipus and in the oral memories of elders.

Guaman Poma’s New Chronicle is an instance of what I have proposed
to call an autoethnographic text, by which I mean a text in which people un­
dertake to describe themselves in ways that engage with representations
others have made of them. Thus if ethnographic texts are those in which
European metropolitan subjects represent to themselves their others (usu­
ally their conquered others), autoethnographic texts are representations
that the so-defined others construct in response to or in dialogue with those
texts. Autoethnographic texts are not, then, what are usually thought of as
autochthonous forms of expression or self-representation (as the Andean
quipus were). Rather they involve a selective collaboration with and ap­
propriation of idioms of the metropolis or the conqueror. These are
merged or infiltrated to varying degrees with indigenous idioms to create
self-representations intended to intervene in metropolitan modes of un­
derstanding. Autoethnographic works are often addressed to both metro­
politan audiences and the speaker’s own community. Their reception is

609Arts Contact ZoneMARY LoUISE PRArr

1t Guaman Poma’s giant letter

at all, Guaman Poma exempli­
,d by conquest and empire. He
)ble Inca descent and who had
y. He may have worked in the
preter, scribe, or assistant to a
)rt. He says he learned to write
mish father had given him ac­

tten in two languages (Spanish
llled the Nueva coronica, “New
onicle of course was the main
ush presented their American
of the main official discourses.
a took over the official Spanish
)ughly, to construct a new pic­
IOrld with Andean rather than
co, not Jerusalem. In the New
19 the Christian history of the
I, incorporating the Amerindi­
f Noah. He identifies five ages
with the five ages of canonical
tones that diverge with Noah
h Saint Bartholomew, claimed
leas. In a couple of hundred
, encyclopedia of Inca and pre­
lblic offices, and dynastic lead­
mers and customs description,
lith which knowledge in Inca
memories of elders.
tance of what I have proposed
ean a text in which people un­
t engage with representations
aphic texts are those in which
) themselves their others (usu­
phic texts are representations
lse to or in dialogue with those
what are usually thought of as
:epresentation (as the Andean
ve collaboration with and ap­
or the conqueror. These are
th indigenous idioms to create
n metropolitan modes of un­
.ften addressed to both metro­
ommunity. Their reception is

thus highly indeterminate. Such texts often constitute a marginalized
group’s point of entry into the dominant circuits of print culture. It is in­
teresting to think, for example, of American slave autobiography in its au­
toethnographic dimensions, which in some respects distinguish it from
Euramerican autobiographical tradition. The concept might help explain
why some of the earliest published writing by Chlcanas took the form of
folkloric manners and customs sketches written in English and published
in English-language newspapers or folklore magazines (see Trevino). Au­
toethnographlc representation often involves concrete collaborations be­
tween people, as between literate ex-slaves and abolitionist intellectuals,
or between Guaman Poma and the Inca elders who were his informants.
Often, as in Guaman Poma, it involves more than one language. In recent
decades autoethnography, critique, and resistance have reconnected with
writing in a contemporary creation of the contact zone, the testimonio.

Guaman Poma’s New Chronicle ends with a revisionist account of
the Spanish conquest, whlch, he argues, should have been a peaceful

i :’
I >,
!

Figure 1. Adam and Eve

610 MARy LOUISE PRAll

encounter of equals with the potential for benefiting both, but for the
mindless greed of the Spanish. He parodies Spanish history. Following
contact with the Incas, he writes, “In all Castille, there was a great commo­
tion. All day and at night in their dreams the Spaniards were saying, ‘Yn­
dias, yndias, oro, plata, oro, plata del Pim'” (“Indies, Indies, gold, silver,
gold, silver from Peru”) (Fig. 2). The Spanish, he writes, brought nothing
of value to share with the Andeans, nothing “but armor and guns con la
codicia de oro, plata oro y plata, yndias, a las Yndias, Piru” (“with the lust
for gold, silver, gold and silver, Indies, the Indies, Peru”) (372). I quote
these words as an example of a conquered subject using the conqueror’s
language to construct a parodic, oppositional representation of the con­
queror’s own speech. Guaman Poma mirrors back to the Spanish (in their
language, which is alien to him) an image of themselves that they often
suppress and will therefore surely recognize. Such are the dynamics of
language, writing, and representation in contact zones.

The second half of the epistle continues the critique. It is titled Buen go­
bierno y justicia, “Good Government and Justice,” and combines a descrip-

Figure 2. Conquista. Meeting of Spaniard and Inca. The Inca says in Quechua,
“You eat this gold?” Spaniard replies in Spanish, “We eat this gold.”

611MARy LOUISE PRATI Arts Contact Zone

r benefiting both, but for the
es Spanish history. Following
tille, there was a great commo­
le Spaniards were saying, ‘Yn­
” (“Indies, Indies, gold, silver,
sh, he writes, brought nothing
Lg “but armor and guns con la
is Yndias, Pire” (“with the lust
e Indies, Peru”) (372). I quote
. subject using the conqueror’s
,nal representation of the con­
rs back to the Spanish (in their
of themselves that they often

ize. Such are the dynamics of
:ltact zones.
the critique. It i~titled Buen go­
,tice,” and combines a descrip-

Inca. The Inca says in Quechua,
panish, ”We eat this gold.”

tion of colonial society in the Andean region with a pa~~ionate denunciat;ion
of Spanish exploitation and abuse. (These, at the time he was writing, were
decimating the population of the Andes at a genocidal rate. In fact, the po­
tentialloss of the labor force became a main cause for reform of the system.)
Guaman Poma’s most implacable hostility is invoked by the clergy, fol­
lowed by the dreaded corregidores, or colonial overseers (Fig. 3). He also
praises good works, Christian habits, and just men where he finds them,
and offers at length his views as to what constitutes” good government and
justice.” The Indies, he argues, should be administered through a collabora­
tion of Inca and Spanish elites. The epistle ends with an imaginary question­
and-answer session in which, in a reversal of hierarchy, the king is depicted
asking Guaman Poma questions about how to reform the empire-a dia­
logue imagined across the many lines that divide the Andean scribe from
the imperial monarch, and in which the subordinated subject single­
handedly gives himself authority in the colonizer’s language and verbal
repertoire. In a way, it worked-this extraordinary text did get written­
but in a way it did not, for the letter never reached its addressee.

Figure 3. Corregidor de minas. Catalog of Spanish abuses
of indigenous labor force.

,.;

612

r
MARY LOUISE PRAIT

To grasp the import of Guaman Poma’s project, one needs to keep in
mind that the Incas had no system of writing. Their huge empire is said to
be the only known instance of a full-blown bureaucratic state society built
and administered without writing. Guaman Poma constructs his text by
appropriating and adapting pieces of the representational repertoire of the
invaders. He does not simply imitate or reproduce it; he selects and
adapts it along Andean lines to express (bilingually, mind you) Andean
interests and aspirations. Ethnographers have used the term transcultura­
tion to describe processes whereby members of subordinated or marginal
groups select and invent from materials transmitted by a dominant or
metropolitan culture. The term, originally coined by Cuban sociologist
Fernando Ortiz in the 1940s, aimed to replace overly reductive concepts of
acculturation and assimilation used to characterize culture under con­
quest. While subordinate peoples do not usually control what emanates
from the dominant culture,they do determine to varying extents what
gets absorbed into their own and what it gets used for. Transculturation,
like autoethnography, is a phenomenon of the contact zone.

As scholars have realized only relatively recently, the transcultural
character of Guaman Poma’s text is intricately apparent in its visual as
well as its written component. The genre of the four hundred line draw­
ings is European-there seems to have been no tradition of representa­
tional drawing among the Incas-but in their execution they deploy
specifically Andean systems of spatial symbolism that express Andean
values and aspirations. l

In figure 1, for instance, Adam is depicted on the left-hand side below
the sun, while Eve is on the right-hand side below the moon, and slightly
lower than Adam. The two are divided by the diagonal of Adam’s digging
stick. In Andean spatial symbolism, the diagonal descending from the sun
marks the basic line of power and authority dividing upper from lower,
male from female, dominant from subordinate. In figure 2, the Inca appears
in the same position as Adam, with the Spaniard opposite, and the two at
the same height. In figure 3, depicting Spanish abuses of power, the sym­
bolic pattern is reversed. The Spaniard is in a high position indicating dom­
inance, but on the “wrong” (right-hand) side. The diagonals of his lance and
that of the servant doing the flogging mark out a line of illegitimate, though
real, power. The Andean figures continue to occupy the left-hand side of the
picture, but clearly as victims. Guaman Poma wrote that the Spanish con­
quest had produced “un mundo al reves,” “a world in reverse.”

In sum, Guaman Poma’s text is truly a product of the contact zone. If one
thinks of cultures, or literatures, as discrete, coherently structured, mono­
lingual edifices, Guaman Poma’s text, and indeed any autoethnographic
work, appears anomalous or chaotic-as it apparently did to the European
scholars Pietschmann spoke to in 1912. If one does not think of cultures this
way, then Guaman Poma’s text is simply heterogeneous, as the Andean re­
gion was itself and remains today. Such a text is heterogeneous on the re­
ception end as well as the production end: it will read very differently to
people in different positions in the contact zone. Because it deploys

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:erogeneous, as the Andean re­
~xt is heterogeneous on the re­
it will read very differently to
act zone. Because it deploys

The idea of the contact zone is intended in part to contrast with ideas
of community that underlie much of the thinking about language, com­
munication, and culture that gets done in the academy. A couple of years

MARy LoUISE PRATT Arts Contact Zone 613

project, one needs to keep in
~. Their huge empire is said to
mreaucratic state society built
1 Poma constructs his text by
Iresentational repertoire of the
reproduce it; he selects and
lingually, mind you) Andean
ve used the term transcultura­
5 of subordinated or marginal
~ansmitted by a dominant or
coined by Cuban sociologist
e overly reductive concepts of
uacterize culture under con­
sually control what emanates
nine to varying extents what
~ts used for. Tr~culturation,
1e contact zone.
!ly recently, the transcultural
ltely apparent in its visual as
f the four hundred line draw­
m no tradition of representa­
their execution they deploy

nbolism that express Andean

~d on the left-hand side below
below the moon, and slightly

le diagonal of Adam’s digging
;onal descendirlg from the sun
y dividirlg upper from lower,
teo In figure 2, the Inca appears
niard opposite, and the two at
ish abuses of power, the sym­
· high position irldicatirlg dom­
· The diagonals of his lance and
ut a line of illegitimate, though
)Ccupy the left-hand side of the
la wrote that the Spanish con­
vorld irl reverse.”
)duct of the contact zone. Ifone
· coherently structured, mono­
irldeed any autoethnographic
pparently did to the European
~ does not think of cultures tlUs

European and Andean systems of meaning making, the letter necessarily
means differently to bilingual Spanish-Quechua speakers and to monolin­
gual speakers in either language; the drawings mean differently to mono­
cultural readers, Spanish or Andean, and to bicultural readers respondirlg
to the Andean symbolic structures embodied in European genres.

In the Andes in the early 1600s there existed a literate public with con­
siderable intercultural competence and degrees of bilirlgualism. Unfortu­
nately, such a community did not exist in the Spanish court with which
Guaman Poma was trying to make contact. It is interesting to note that in
the same year Guaman Poma sent off his letter, a text by another Peruvian
was adopted in official circles in Spain as the canonical Christian mediation

I,
between the Spanish conquest and Inca history. It was another huge ency­
clopedic work, titled the Royal Commentaries of the Incas, written, tellingly,

I

I,
I by a mestizo, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega. Like the mestizo half brother who

taught Guaman Poma to read and write, Inca Garcilaso was the son of an
Inca princess and a Spanish official, and had lived in Spain since he was sev­

i enteen. Though he too spoke Quechua, his book is written in eloquent, stan­
dard Spanish, without illustrations. While Guaman Poma’s life’s work sat
somewhere unread, the Royal Commentaries was edited and reedited in
Spain and the New World, a mediation that coded the Andean past and
present irl ways thought unthreatenmg to colonial hierarchy.2 The textual
hierarchy persists; the Royal Commentaries today remains a staple item on
Ph.D. readirlg lists irl Spanish, while the New Chronicle and Good Government,
despite the ready availability of several fine editions, is not. However,
though Guaman Poma’s text did not reach its destination, the transcultural
currents of expression it exemplifies continued to evolve in the Andes, as
they still do, less in wri.ting than in storytelling, ritual, song, dance-drama,
painting and sculpture, dress, textile art, forms of governance, religious be­
lief, and many other vernacular art forms. All express the effects of long­
term contact and irltractable, unequal conflict.

Autoethnography, transculturation, critique, collaboration, bilingual­
ism, mediation, parody, denundation, irnagmary dialogue, vernacular ex­
pression-these are some of the literate arts of the contact zone. Miscom­
prehension, incomprehension, dead letters, unread masterpieces, absolute
heterogeneity of meanmg-these are some of the perils of writing in the
contact zone. They all live among us today in the transnationalized me­
tropolis of the United States and are becoming more widely visible, more
pressirlg, and, like Guaman Poma’s text, more decipherable to those who
once would have ignored them irl defense of a stable, centered sense of
knowledge and reality.

Contact and Community

614

r
MARY LoUISE Purr

ago, thinking about the linguistic theories I knew, I tried to make sense of
a utopian quality that often seemed to characterize social analyses of lan­
guage by the academy. Languages were seen as living in “speech commu­
nities/’ and these tended to be theorized as discrete, self-defined, coherent
entities, held together by a homogeneous competence or grammar shared
identically and equally among all the members. This abstract idea of the
speech community seemed to reflect, among other things, the utopian
way modem nations conceive of themselves as what Benedict Anderson
calls “imagined communities.”l In a book of that title, Anderson observes
that with the possible exception of what he calls “primordial villages,”
human communities exist as imagined entities in which people “will never
know most of their fellow-members, meet them or even hear of them, yet
in the mind of each lives the image of their communion.” “Communities
are distinguished,” he goes on to say, “not by their falsity/genuineness,
but by the style in which they are imagined” (15; emphasis mine). Anderson
proposes three features that characterize the style in which the modem
nation is imagined. First, it is imagined as limited, by “finite, if elastic,
boundaries”; second, it is imagined as sovereign; and, third, it is imagined
asjratemal, “a deep, horizontal comradeship” for which millions of people
are prepared “not so much to kill as willingly to die” (15). As the image
suggests, the nation-community is embodied metonymically in the finite,
sovereign, fraternal figure of the citizen-soldier.

Anderson argues that European bourgeoisies were distinguished by
their ability to “achieve solidarity on an essentially imagined basis” (74)
on a scale far greater than that of elites of other times and places. Writ­
ing and literacy playa central role in this argument. Anderson mruntains,
as have others, that the main instrument that made bourgeois nation­
building projects possible was print capitalism. The commercial circula­
tion of books in the various European vernaculars, he argues, was what
first created the invisible networks that would eventually constitute the
literate elites and those they ruled as nations. (Estimates are that 180 mil­
lion books were put into circulation in Europe between the years 1500
and 1600 alone.)

Now obviously this style of imagining of modem nations, as Anderson
describes it, is strongly utopian, embodying values like equality, frater­
nity, liberty, which the societies often profess but systematically fail to re­
alize. The prototype of the modem nation as imagined community was, it
seemed to me, mirrored in ways people thought about language and the
speech community. Many commentators have pointed out how modem
views of language as code and competence assume a unified and homoge­
neous social world in which language exists as a shared patrimony-as a
device, precisely, for imagining community. An image of a universally
shared literacy is also part of the picture. The prototypical manifestation
of language is generally taken to be the speech of individual adult native
speakers face-ta-face (as in Saussure’s famous diagram) in monolingual,
even monodialectal situations-in short, the most homogeneous case

615 MARy LOUISE PRArr

[ knew, I tried to make sense of
racterize social analyses of lan­
an as living in “speech commu­
discrete, self-defined, coherent

:ompetence or grammar shared
nbers. This abstract idea of the
ong other things, the utopian
‘es as what Benedict Anderson
)f that title, Anderson observes
he calls “primordial villages,”
ies in which people “will never
them or even hear of them, yet
Lr communion.” “Communities
)t by their falsity/genuineness,
(15; emphasis mine). Anderson
the style in which the modem
1S limited, by “finite, if elastic,
reign; and, third, it is imagined
p” for which millions of people
19ly to die” (15). As the image
ed metonymically in the finite,
dier.
~eoisies were distinguished by
ssentially imagined basis” (74)
f other times and places. Writ­
.rgument. Anderson maintains,
: that made bourgeois nation­
ilism. ‘The commercial circula­
naculars, he argues, was what
‘ould eventually constitute the
ns. (Estimates are that 180 mil­
urope between the years 1500

If modem nations, as Anderson
ng values like equality, frater­
!ss but systematically fail to re­
1S imagined community was, it
lOUght about language and the
lave pointed out how modem
assume a unified and homoge­
ts as a shared patrimony-as a
ty. An image of a universally
The prototypical manifestation
eech of individual adult native
lOllS diagram) in monolingual,
the most homogeneous· case

Arts Con tact Zone

linguistically and socially. The same goes for written cQQJmunication.
Now one could certainly imagine a theory that assumed different things­
that argued, for instance, that the most revealing speech situation for un­
derstanding language was one involving a gathering of people each of
whom spoke two languages and understood a third and held only one
language in common with any of the others. It depends on what workings
of language you want to see or want to see first, on what you choose to de­
fine as normative.

In keeping with autonomous, fraternal models of community, analyses
of language use commonly assume that principles of cooperation and
shared understanding are normally in effect. Descriptions of interactions
between people in conversation, classrooms, medical and bureaucratic set­
tings, readily take it for granted that the situation is governed by a single
set of rules or norms shared by all participants. The analysis focuses then
on how those rules produce or fail to produce an orderly, coherent ex­
change. Models involving games and moves are often used to describe
interactions. Despite whatever conflicts or systematic social differences
might be in play, it is assumed that all participants are engaged in the
same game and that the game is the same for all players. Often it is. But of
course it often is not, as, for example, when speakers are from different
classes or cultures, or one party is exerCising authority and another is sub­
mitting to it or questioning it. Last year one of my children moved to a
new elementary school that had more open classrooms and more flexible
curricula than the conventional school he started out in. A few days into
the term, we asked him what it was like at the new school. “Well,” he said,
“they’re a lot nicer, and they have a lot less rules. But know why they’re
nicer?” “Why?” I asked. “So you’ll obey all the rules they don’t have,” he
replied. This is a very coherent analysis with considerable elegance and
explanatory power, but probably not the one his teacher would have
given.

When linguistic (or literate) interaction is described in terms of orderli­
ness, games, moves, or scripts, usually only legitimate moves are actually
named as part of the system, where legitimacy is defined from the point of
view of the party in authority-regardless of what other parties might see
themselves as doing. Teacher-pupil language, for example, tends to be de­
scribed almost entirely from the point of view of the teacher and teaching,
not from the point of view of pupils and pupiling (the word doesn’t even
exist, though the thing certainly does). If a classroom is analyzed as a so­
cial world unified and homogenized with respect to the teacher, whatever
students do other than what the teacher specifies is invisible or anomalous
to the analysis. This can be true in practice as well. On several occasions
my fourth grader, the one busy obeying all the rules they didn’t have, was
given writing assignments that took the form of answering a series of
questions to build up a paragraph. These questions often asked him to
identify with the interests of those in power over him-parents, teachers,
doctors, public authorities. He invariably sought ways to resist or subvert

616 MARy LOUISE PRATT
——-,~.–.—,—–

these assignments. One assignment, for instance, called for imagining”a
helpful invention.” The students were asked to write single-sentence re­
sponses to the following questions:

What kind of invention would help

you?

How would it help you?
Why would you need it?
What would it look like?
Would other people be able to use it also?
What would be an invention to help your teacher?
What would be an invention to help your parents?

Manuel’s reply read as follows:

A grate adventchin

Some inventchins are GRATE!!!!!!!!!!! My inventchin would be a
shot that would put every thing you learn at school in your
brain. It would help me by letting me graduate right now!! I
would need it because it would let me play with my friends, go
on vacachin and, do fun a lot more. It would look like a regular
shot. Ather peaple would use to. This inventchin would help
my teacher parents get away from a lot of work. I think a shot
like this would be GRATE!

Despite the spelling, the assignment received the usual star to indicate the
task had been fulfilled in an acceptable way. No recognition was available,
however, of the humor, the attempt to be critical or contestatory, to par­
ody the structures of authority. On that score, Manuel’s luck was only
slightly better than Guaman Poma’s. What is the place of unsolicited op­
positional discourse, parody, resistance, critique in the imagined class­
room community? Are teachers supposed to feel that their teaching has
been most successful when they have eliminated such things and unified
the social world, probably in their own image? Who wins when we do
that? Who loses?

Such questions may be hypothetical, because in the United States in
the 1990s, many teachers find themselves less and less able to do that even
if they want to. The composition of the national collectivity is changing
and so are the styles, as Anderson put it, in which it is being imagined. In
the 1980s in many nation-states, imagfued national syntheses that had re­
tained hegemonic force began to dissolve. Internal social groups with his­
tories and lifeways different from the official ones began insisting on those
histories and lifeways as part of their citizenship, as the very mode of their
membership in the national collectivity. In their dialogues with dominant
institutions, many groups began asserting a rhetoric of belonging that
made demands beyond those of representation and basic rights granted
from above. In universities we started to hear, JlI don’t just want you to let
me be here, I want to belong here; this institution should belong to me as
much as it does to anyone else.” Institutions have responded with, among

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617 Arts Contact ZoneMARY LoUISE PRATI
—–.–~.–

ce, called for imagining “a
o write single-sentence re-

you?

.also?
, your teacher?
, your parents?

nventchin would be a
1m at school in ‘your
raduate right now!! I
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Llld look like a regular
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:he usual star to indicate the
o recognition was available,
ical or contestatory, to par­
re, Manuel’s luck was only
the place of unsolicited op­
que in the imagined c1ass­
feel that their teaching has

,ted such things and unified
~e? Who wins when we do

luse in the United States in
and less able to do that even
)nal collectivity is changing
-hich it is being imagined. In
tional syntheses that had re­
ernal social groups with his­
mes began insisting on those
ip, as the very mode of their
eir dialogues with dominant
t rhetoric of belonging that
ion and basic rights granted
, “I don’t just want you to let
ltion should belong to me as
lave responded with, among

other things, rhetorics of diversity arid multicu1turalism whose iMport at
this moment is up for grabs across the ideological spectrum.

These shifts are being lived out by everyone working in education
today, and everyone is challenged by them in one way or another. Those
of us committed to educational democracy are particularly challenged as
that notion finds itself besieged on the public agenda. Many of those who
govern us display, openly, their interest in a quiescent, ignorant, manipu­
lable electorate. Even as an ideal, the concept of an enlightened citizenry
seems to have disappeared from the national imagination. A couple of
years ago the university where I work went through an intense and
wrenching debate over a narrowly defined Western-culture requirement
that had been instituted there in 1980. It kept boiling down to a debate
over the ideas of national patrimony, cultural citizenship, and imagined
community. In the end, the requirement was transformed into a much
more broadly defined course called Cultures, Ideas, Values.4 In the context
of the change, a new course was designed that centered on the Americas
and the multiple cultural histories (including European ones) that have in­
tersected here. As you can imagine, the course attracted a very diverse
student body. The classroom functioned not like a homogeneous commu­
nity or a horizontal alliance but like a contact zone. Every single text we
read stood in specific historical relationships to the students in the class,
but the range and variety of historical relationships in play were enor­
mous. Everybody had a stake in nearly everything we read, but the range
and kind of stakes varied widely.

It was the most exciting teaching we had ever done, and also the hard­
est. We were struck, for example, at how anomalous the formal lecture be­
came in a contact zone (who can forget Atahuallpa throwing down the
Bible because it would not speak to him?). The lecturer’s traditional (imag­
ined) task-unifying the world in the class’s eyes by means of a mono­
logue that rings equally coherent, revealing, and true for all, forging an ad
hoc community, homogeneous with respect to one’s own words-this
task became not only impossible but anomalous and unimaginable. In­
stead, one had to work in the knowledge that whatever one said was
going to be systematically received in radically heterogeneous ways that
we were neither able nor entitled to prescribe.

The very nature of the course put ideas and identities on the line. AU
the students in the class had the experience, for example, of hearing their
culture discussed and objectified in ways that horrified them; all the stu­
dents saw their roots traced back to legacies of both glory and shame; all
the students experienced face-to-face the ignorance and incomprehension,
and occasionally the hostility, of others. In the absence of community val­
ues and the hope of synthesis, it was easy to forget the positives; the fact,
for instance, that kinds of marginalization once taken for granted were
gone. Virtually every student was having the experience of seeing the
world described with him or her in it. Along with rage, incomprehension,
and pain, there were exhilarating moments of wonder and revelation,

618 MARY LOUISE PRATf

mutual understanding, and new wisdom-the joys of the contact zone.
The sufferings and revelations were, at different moments to be sure, ex­
perienced by every student. No one was excluded, and no one was safe.

The fact that no one was safe made all of us involved in the course ap­
preciate the importance of what we came to call “safe houses.” We used
the term to refer to social and intellectual spaces where groups can consti­
tute themselves as horizontal, homogeneous, sovereign communities with
high degrees of trust, shared understandings, temporary protection from
legacies of oppression. This is why, as we realized, multicultural curricula
should not seek to replace ethnic or women’s studies, for example. Where
there are legacies of subordination, groups need places for healing and
mutual recognition, safe houses in which to construct shared understand­
ings, know ledges, claims on the world that they can then bring into the
contact zone.

Meanwhile, our job in the Americas course remains to figure out how
to make that crossroads the best site for learning that it can be. We are
looking for the pedagogical arts of the contact zone. These will include, we
are sure, exercises in storytelling and in identifying with the ideas, inter­
ests, histories, and attitudes of others; experiments in transculturation and
collaborative work and in the arts of critique, parody, and comparison
(including unseemly comparisons between elite and vernacular cultural
forms); the redemption of the oral; ways for people to engage with sup­
pressed aspects of history (including their own histories), ways to move
into and out of rhetorics of authenticity; ground rules for communication
across lines of difference and hierarchy that go beyond politeness but
maintain mutual respect; a systematic approach to the all-important con­
cept of cultural mediation. These arts were in play in every room at the ex­
traordinary Pittsburgh conference on literacy. I learned a lot about them
there, and I am thankful.

Adorno, Rolena. Guaman Poma de Ayala: Writing and Resistance in Colonial Peru.
Austin: U of Texas P, 1986.

Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of
Nationalism. London: Verso, 1984.

Garcilaso de la Vega, El Inca. Royal Commentaries of the Incas. 1613. Austin: U of
Texas P, 1966.

Guaman Porna de Ayala, Felipe. El primer nueva cor6nica y burn gobierno. Manuscript.
Ed. John Murra and Rolena Adorno. Mexico: Siglo XXI, 1980.

Pratt, Mary Louise. “Linguistic Utopias.” The Linguistics of Writing. Ed. Nigel Fabb
et al. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1987. 48-66.

Treviiio, Gloria. “Cultural Ambivalence in Early Chicano Prose Fiction.” Diss. Stan­
ford U, 1985.

1For an introduction in English to these and other aspects of Guaman Porna’s work,
see RoIena Adorno. Adorno and Mercedes Lopez-Baralt pioneered the study of Andean
symbolic systems in Guarnan Porna.

• • •

MARy LOUISE PRAIT Arts Contact Zone 619

le joys of the contact zone.
ent moments to be sure, ex­
ded, and no one was safe.
IS involved in the course ap­
call”safe houses.” We used
:es where groups can consti­
sovereign communities with
, temporary protection from
ized, multicultural curricula
studies, for example. Where
leed places for healing and
onstruct shared understand­
hey can then bring into the

.e remains to figure out how
ning that it can’be. We are
zone. These will include, we
tifying with the ideas, inter­
lents in transculturation and
le, parody, and comparison
·lite and vernacular cultural
people to engage with sup­

>\Tn histories), ways to move
nd rules for communication
t go beyond politeness but
1m to the all-important con­
llay in every room at the ex­
‘. I learned a lot about them

Ii and Resistance in Colonial Peru.

~tions on the Origins and Spread of

!S of the Incas. 1613. Austin: U of

Tonica y buen gobierno. Manuscript.
[,1980.
g-uistics of Writing. Ed. Nigel Fabb

:hicano Prose Fiction.” Diss. Stan-

aspects of Guaman Poma’s work,

lIt-~’far from clear that the Royal Commentaries was as be;Ugn as the Spanish seemed
to assume. The book certainly played a role in maintaining the identity and aspirations of
indigenous elites in the Andes. In the mid-eighteenth century, a new edition of the Royal
Commentaries was suppressed by Spanish authorities because its preface included a
prophecy by Sir Walter Raleigh that the English would invade Peru and restore the Inca
monarchy.

3The discussion of community here is summarized from my essay “Linguistic
Utopias.”

4For information about this program and the contents of courses taught in it, write
Program in Cultures, Ideas, Values (CIV), Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA 94305.

QUESTIONS FOR A SECOND READ

ING

L Perhaps the most interesting question “Arts of the Contact Zone” raises
for its readers is how to put together the pieces: the examples from Pratt’s
children, the discussion of Guaman Poma and the New Chronicle and Good
Government, the brief history of European literacy, and the discussion of
curriculum reform at Stanford. The terms that run through the sections
are, among others, these: “contact,” “community,” “autoethnography,”
“transculturation.” As you reread, mark those passages you might use to
trace the general argument that cuts across these examples.

2. This essay was originally delivered as a lecture. Before you read her essay
again, create a set of notes on what you remember as important, relevant,
or worthwhile. Imagine yourself as part of her audience. Then reread the
essay. Where would you want to interrupt her? What questions could you
ask her that might make “Arts of the Contact Zone” more accessible to
you?

3. This is an essay about reading and writing and teaching and leaming,
about the “literate arts” and the “pedagogical arts” of the contact zone.
Surely the composition class, the first-year college English dass, can be
imagined as a contact zone. And it seems in the spirit of Pratt’s essay to
identify (as a student) with Guarnan Poma. As you reread, think about
how and where this essay might be said to speak directly to you about
your education as a reader and writer in a contact zone.

4. There are some difficult terms in this essay: “autochthonous,” “au­
toethnography,” “transculturation.” The last two are defined in the text;
the first you will have to look up. (We did.) In some ways, the slipperiest
of the key words in the essay is “culture.” At one point Pratt says,

H one thinks of cultures, or literatures, as discrete, coherently struc­
tured, monolingual edifices, Guaman Poma’s text, and indeed any au­
toethnographic work, appears anomalous or chaotic-as it apparently
did to the European scholars Pietschmann spoke to in 1912.1£ one does
not think of cultures this way, then Guaman Poma’s text is simply het­

lit pioneered the study of Andean erogeneous, as the Andean region was itseH and remains today. Such a
text is heterogeneous on the reception end as well as the production

620 MARy LOUISE PMIT

end: it will read very differently to people in d

ifferent positions in the

contact zone. (p. 612)

If one thinks of cultures as “coherently structured, monolingual edifices,”
the text appears one way; if one thinks otherwise the text is “simply het­
erogeneous.” What might it mean to make this shift in the way one thinks
of culture? Can you do it-that is, can you read the New Chronicle from
both points of view, make the two points of view work in your own imag­
ining? Can you, for example, think of a group that you participate in as a
“community”? Then can you think of it as a “contact zone”? Which one
seems “natural” to you? WhaJ does Pratt assu

me to be the dominant point

of view now, for her readers?

As you reread, not only do you want to get a sense of how to explain
these two attitudes toward culture, but you need to practice shifting your
point of view from one to the other. Think, from inside the position of
each, of the things you would be expected to say about Poma’s text,
Manuel’s invention; and your classroom.

ASSIGNMENTS FOR WRITING

Here, briefly, are two descriptions of the writing one might find or ex­
pect in the “contact zone.” They serve as an introduction to the three writ­
ing assignments.

Autoethnography, transculturation, critique, collaboration, bilingual­
ism, mediation, parody, denunciation, imaginary dialogue, vernacular
expression-these are some of the literate arts of the contact zone. Mis­
comprehension, incomprehension, dead letters, unread masterpieces,
absolute heterogeneity of meaning-these are some of the perils of
writing in the contact zone. They all live among us today in the
transnationalized metropolis of the United States and are becoming
more widely visible, more pressing, and, like Guaman Poma’s text,
more decipherable to those who once would have ignored them in de­
fense of a stable, centered sense of knowledge and reality. (p. 613)

We are looking for the pedagOgical arts of the contact zone. These will
include, we are sure, exercises in storytelling and in identifying with
the ideas, interests, histories, and attitudes of others; experiments in
transculturation and collaborative work and in the arts of critique, par­
ody, and comparison (including unseemly comparisons between elite
and vernacular cultural forms); the redemption of the oral; ways for
people to engage with suppressed aspects of history (including their
own histories), ways to move into and out of rhetorics of authenticity;
ground rules for communication across lines of difference and hierar­
chy that go beyond politeness but maintain mutual respect; a system­
atic approach to the all-important concept of cultural mediation. (p. 618)

1. One way of working with Pratt’s essay, of extending its project, would
be to conduct your own local inventory of writing from the contact zone.
You might do this on your own or in teams with others from your class.
You will want to gather several similar documents, your “archive,” be­
fore you make your final selection. Think about how to make that choice.

Ar

2.

621Arts Contact ZoneMARy LOUISE PRAIT

:>llaboration, bilingual­
y dialogue, vernacular
f the contact zone. Mis­
, unread masterpieces,
some of the perils of

nong us today in the
Ites and are becoming
Guaman Porna’s text,

ve ignored them in de-
Id reality. (p. 613)

ontact zone. These will
,nd in identifying with
others; experiments in
he arts of critique, par­
lpariSOns between elite
1 of the oral; ways for
tistory (including their
letorics of authenticity;
: difference and hierar­
ltual respect; a system­
tural mediation. (p. 618)

!xtending its project, would
iting from the contact zone.
.vith others from your class.
Iments, your “archive,” be­
ut how to make that choice.

like to work with and present it carefully and in detail (perhaps in even
greater detail than Pratt’s presentation of the New Chronicle). You might
imagine that you are presenting this, to someone who would not have
seen it and would not know how to read it, at least not as an example of
the literate arts of the contact zone.

2. Another way of extending the project of Pratt’s essay would be to write
your own autoeilinography. It should not be too hard to locate a setting or
context in which you are the “other”-the one who speaks from outside
rather than inside the dominant discourse. Pratt says that the position of
the outsider is marked not only by differences of language and ways of
thinking and speaking but also by differences in power, authority, status.
In a sense, she argues, the only way those in power can understand you is
in their terms. These are terms you will need to use to tell your story, but
your goal is to describe your position in ways that IIengage with represen­
tations others have made of [you]” without giving 4t or giving up or dis­
appearing in their already formed sense of who you are.

This is an interesting challenge. One of the things that will make the
writing difficult is that the autoeilinographic or transcultural text calls
upon skills not usually valued in American classrooms: bilingualism,
parody, denunciation, imaginary dialogue, vernacular expression, story­
telling, unseemly comparisons of high and low cultural forms-these
are some of the terms Pratt offers. These do not fit easily with the tra­
ditional genres of the writing class (essay, term paper, summary, report)
or its traditional values (unity, consistency, sincerity, clarity, correctness,
decorum).

I
”
ifferent positions in the

ured, monolingual edifices,”
wise the text is “simply het­
s shift in the way one thinks
‘ead the New Chronicle from
lew work in your own imag­
) that you participate in as a
“contact zone”? Which one

me to be the dominant point

:et a sense of how to explain
eed to practice shifting your
from inside the position of
to say about Poma’s text,

ING

vriting one might find or ex­
,traduction to the three writ-

What makes one document stand out as representative? Here are’ fWo
ways you might organize your search:

a. You could look for historical documents. A local historical society
might have documents written by Native Americans (“Indians”) to the
white settlers. There may be documents written by slaves to masters or
to northern whites explaining their experience with slavery. There
may be documents by women (like suffragettes) trying to negotiate for
public positions and rights. There may be documents from any of a
number of racial or ethnic groups-Hispanic, Jewish, Irish, Italian,
Polish, Swedish-trying to explain their positions to the mainstream
culture. There may, perhaps at union halls, be documents written by
workers to owners. Your own sense of the heritage of your area should
direct your search.

b. Or you could look for contemporary documents in the print that is
around you, things that you might otherwise overlook. Pratt refers to
one of the characteristic genres of the Hispanic community, the “testi­
mania.” You could look at the writing of any marginalized group, par­
ticularly writing intended, at least in part, to represent the experience
of outsiders to the dominant culture (or to be in dialogue with that cul­
ture or to respond to that culture). These documents, if we follow
Pratt’s example, would encompass the work of young children or stu­
dents, including college students.

Once you have completed your inventory, choose a document you would

622 MARY loUISE PRATT

You will probably need to take this essay (or whatever it should be
called) through several drafts. It might be best to begin as Pratt’s student,
using her description as a preliminary guide. Once you get a sense of
your own project, you may find that you have terms or examples to add
to her list of the literate arts of the contact zone.

3. Citing Benedict Anderson and what he calls “imagined communities,”
Pratt argues that our idea of community is “strongly utopian, embodying
values like equality, fraternity, liberty, which the societies often profess
but systematically fail to realize.” Against this utopian vision of commu­
nity, Pratt argues that we need to develop ways of understanding (even
noticing) social and intellectual spaces that are not homogeneous, unified;
we need to develop ways of understanding and valuing difference.

Think of a community of which you are a member, a community that
is important to you. And think about the utopian terms you are given to
name and describe this community. Think, then, about this group in
Pratt’s terms–as a “contact zone.” How would you name and describe
this social space? Write an essay in which you present these alternate
points of view on a single sodal group. You will need to present this dis­
cussion fully, so that someone who is not part of your group can follow
what you say, and you should take time to think about the consequences
(for you, for your group) of this shift in point of view, in terms.

MAKING CONNECI’IONS

1. In “The Photographic Essay: Four Case Studies” (p. 510), W. J. T. Mitchell
is concerned with the ways both words and images take possession of
their subjects. And, in his account, there is a political dimension to this. It
is a matter of the rich looking at and describing the poor in Let Us Now
Praise Famous Men, of colonial power and the colonized in The Colonial
Harem and After the Last Sky. (It is harder to name the victims and agents
of appropriation in Camera Lucida. It would be worth your time to read
that section carefully to see what terms Barthes offers.) In Pratt’s terms in
“Arts of the Contact Zone,” both the photos and the texts represent mo­
ments of contact between persons of different cultures and unequal
status.

Write an essay in which you consider two of the cases in “The Photo­
graphic. Essay” in terms of Pratt’s discussion of the contact zone. How
would she understand the status and meaning of the words and images
used to represent the “other”? How is her understanding different from
Mitchell’s? Both could be said to be interested in the role of power, the po­
litical, and history in the use and formation of texts. Which account seems
most useful to you? Useful for what?

2. Here, from IIArts of the Contact Zone” (p.

60S), is Mary Louise Pratt on

the “autoethnographic” text:

Guaman Poma’s New Chronicle is an instance of what I have proposed
to call an autoethnographic text, by which I mean a text in which people
undertake to describe themselves in ways that engage with representa­
tions others have made of them. Thus if ethnographic texts are those in

Arts of the Contact Zone 623MARY LOUISE PRAIT

ssay (or whatever it should be
best’to begin as Pratt’s student,
uide. Once you get a sense of
have terms or examples to add
wne.

:aIls “imagined communities,”
; “strongly utopian, embodying
hlch the societies often profess
this utopian vision of commu­
) ways of understanding (even
are not homogeneous, unified;

; and valuing difference.
‘e a member, a commuplty that
ltopian terms you are given to
nk, then, about this group in
would you name and describe
:h you present these altema te
,u will need to present this dis­
part of your group can follow
I think about the consequences
nt of view, in terms.

JNS

dies” (p. 510), W. J. T. Mitchell
nd images take possession of
a political dimension to this. It
ribing the poor in Let Us Now
the colonized in The Colonial

) name the victims and agents
d be worth your time to read
thes offers.) In Pratt’s terms in
)s and the texts represent mo­
fferent cultures and unequal

NO of the cases in “The Photo­
ion of the contact zone. How
ling of the words and images
understanding different from
~ in the role of power, the po­
of texts. Which account seems

60S), is Mary Louise Pratt on

of what I have proposed
m a text in which people
: engage with representa­
graphic texts are those in

which European metropolitan subjects represent to themselves _their
others (usua1fy their conquered others), autoethnographic texts are rep­
resentations that the so-defined others construct in response to or in dia­
logue with those texts …. [Tlhey involve a selective collaboration with
and appropriation of idioms of the metropolis or the conqueror. These
are merged or infiltrated to varying degrees with indigenous idioms
to create self-representations intended to intervene in metropolitan
modes of understanding …. Such texts often constitute a marginalized
group’s point of entry into the dominant circuits of print culture. It is
interesting to think, for example, of American slave autobiography in
its autoethnographic dimensions, which in some respects distinguish it
from Euramerican autobiographical tradition. (pp. 608-(9)

Harriet Jacobs’s “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” (p. 428) is an ex­
ample of an American slave autobiography. James Baldwin’s “Notes of a
Native Son” (p. 52) could serve as its twentieth-century counterpart. Read
both and, working closely with the terms of Pratt’s analysis in /I Arts of the
Contact Zone,” discuss them as examples of autoethnographic and/or
transcultural texts. You should imagine that you are working to put
Pratt’s ideas to the test (do they do what she says such texts must do?), but
also add what you have to say on these two examples of African Ameri­
can autobiography.

“~’I

:;