Passports and Tounges

I thought that the first of the readings, by Gloria Anzuldua, was kind of a dry sort of checklist as opposed to the other reading. The whole selection was cut up into small parts, which explained all of the different forms of Spanish dialect that can be found in the United States. Even though I did not like the style with which the piece was written, I do have to say that I thought that it was an enlightening examination of the Spanish language in the United States and does attempt to establish the idea of the United States as a melting pot rather than a collection of disparate cultures.

The other piece, written by Kumar, was a little more enjoyable to read simply because of the way that the reading flowed instead of being broken up into individual sections. I enjoyed the analogy used at the beginning of the reading explaining an immigration officer as a reader and the immigrants that they examine as books. The other thing that made this entire reading very interesting was the way that both sides of certain situations were examined instead of it being simply a one-sided piece. One example of this was how the writer spoke about sitting in a cafe drinking coffee and asking an employee for cream before realizing that the woman didn't speak English. Kumar pointed out that smiling at the woman might broadcast a message of kindness to the woman, while she may look at it as an unwelcome threat.