How to Tame a Wild Tongue

     I have been trying to figure out how to tame a wild tongue for years.  I am told all the time that I don't know when to shut up.  Of course, this has little to do with my language; my word choice perhaps but not my language.
     In Gloria Anzaldúa's How to Tame a Wild Tongue, the author addresses the way in which the Spanish language has changed and adapted to the changing situations throughout history in order to survive.  An unchanging language is a dead language.  This story is of particular interest to me as a Spanish student.  In fact, I am considering a double major of Spanish and English when I transfer to Wright State in the fall.  I appreciated the fact that the author changed language throughout the story between Spanish and English, including that most of the Spanish was not translated in footnotes.  This went to the heart of what she was trying to convey:  the Spanish language will not die out but will continue to change and evolve.  In other words, you cannot tame her "wild tongue".
     Until I began seriouly studying the Spanish language, I never really thought about there being different dialects.  I had always thought that Spanish was Spanish.  However, there are different dialects in every region of every country in which Spanish is spoken.  Not only does a student need to learn "classical Spanish", but in order to communicate successfully we must learn several dialects.  This way, if we are speaking to a person from Madrid, we can choose a dialect that is closer to their own.  If we are talking to someone from Chile, they will have a very different dialect than someone from Mexico.  The issue is also with slang words that vary from region to region.  Many of these could get you into trouble if you get them confused.  For example, madre means mother but you would not want to use that word with someone from Mexico.  In Mexico, it would be mamá because in Mexican Spanish, madre is used with many terrible insults that you would not want to accidently throw around in public unless you are a good fighter.
     It is a shame that Spanish is not more embraced in the United States.  Who hasn't heard some idiot say, "learn English or go back to Mexico"?  I say "idiot" because there is a reason that we have not declared a "national language".  It is the same reason that we haven't declared a "national religion".  When we continue to stamp out ideas and languages from other cultures, we weaken our own culture.  Of course, there is also the danger of taking such a "cleansing" of cultures too far.  This has happened many times throughout the world and throughout history and if we don't keep our idiots in check, it will happen here.

"The Spanish language... and the English covering nearly the whole face of America, they should be well-known to every inhabitant who means to look beyond the limits of his farm." --Thomas Jefferson