Tangible Barriers by: Bryanna Jones



Throughout this marking period we have been studying the value that language holds. We also  read multiple literary text to explore the impacts it has on people. This unit really has allowed me to understand the why language is so important,  but working with this idea in mind really gave me a brand new perspective on life. What you will be reading below is an essay about my younger sisters struggle with language.

Tangible Barriers
 
They laughed. The American kids laughed because her name was something they had never heard before, instead of taking the time out to give her name the attention it deserved. Their lazy tongues fabricated easy insults.

“Yo African! African booty scratcher,” they would cackle.

“Dantlo, Danny, yo burnt skin girl.” They would shout from across the play yard. They would clap their hands, stomp their feet and make monkey noise to also get her attention. Or they would bang on walls or chairs and make calling noises to get her to look their way.

She would try explain to them in her dense accent that her name was “Daniette,” there was a transparent L between the N and the I. No one cared. Not even myself. So I began to call her “Donetta.” It was much easier, it consisted of two simple syllables instead of the hefty duo her original syllables contained. I could tell she didn’t mind at the moment, but soon the name her mother had adorned her with would want to reclaim its space. Soon she signed her homework papers with my Americanized rendition. Donetta. She found it much simpler to conform, because conforming meant fitting in, when you fit in teasing is unachievable.

Her school assigned her an ETA by the 2nd grade to “correct her english accent”. They were tired of taking an extra 3 minutes to decipher what she would say, so they fed their laziness by giving her a speech teacher. Day by day she would come home with a new ways of pronouncing words. And everyday she would lose a little bit more of her culture.

“ Br-yan-na!” She use to break up my name into a small increments to accommodate her accent. Now she would exclaim, “Hi Bryanna!” Before anyone could enjoy her accent’s melody, it was painted over with the infamous Standard English.

Calling back home to her family became much more complicated, because of the language barrier put in her way. “You sound so American, Daniette.” Her older sisters would say.

“You sound like the white people now,” her mother would say in her Liberian accent.

“I know mommy, the teacher said it will help me speak better.” There was a time when she would answer the phone and say “oma.” Her voice would signal a direct reaction from her mother, but now her voice begun to go unrecognized.

“Mommy? Oh that’s different. Them Americans teach you that too?” Her mother would ask.

“Yes.”English began to take the position of her dominant language. And Liberian terms went forgotten.

When we strip a person of their native tongue we are telling them being  a you is not ok, you must conform. If you don’t, you are an outcast and will never be accepted. How are we the land of the free, if the way our citizens speak must be tamed? The 13th amendment says “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Is forcing these people to dispose of their Native Language “punishment?” We are making them “involuntary servants” to this new way of speaking by giving them speech teachers and telling them to go home and speak Standard English .This is involuntarily enslaving their vernacular. We are “punishing” them because their diversity is intolerable. They are not mindful of what they do because they want to be a significant citizen in the land of the free, and if alleviating their native tongues is the only way to acquire this title, they will do just that. Become enslaved by Standard English.  

Has anyone ever stop to think maybe we are the ignorant ones? There are no tangible barriers that separate us from one another, but we constantly create them. After observing closely how we react to each others vernacular, I have concluded that we create these barriers to fill our ignorant spaces. When our voids are filled we can act with superiority, or at least tame the person so they can preserve the little bit of their culture they have left.

“Standard English is not the speech of exile. It is the language of conquest and domination. In the United States it is the mask which hides the loss of so many tongues, all those sounds of diverse native communities we will never hear, the speech of Gullah, Yiddish, and so many unremembered tongues.”  -Bell Hooks  

Society, we always point our fingers at this thing to shift the blame. But we, the American people, are society. We created those ignorant children, we allow this idea of  Standard English to live on through generations. This enslavement must end, we must end it



hooks, bell. Hooks on the Language of Power. New Learning. Web. 11 Jan 2013. <http://newlearningonline.com/literacies/chapter-6-critical-literacies/hooks-on-the-language-of-power/>.

Comments