Tongue Tied

Who is this girl to speak?

 They asked.

Who is this girl to say these words?

Why does she not speak

 Our words?

Why does she not conform?

We must teach her a new language

 Our language.

Her tongue must be

 Subdued

Her body must reflect our standard,

 Our prose.

Discipline!

 Discipline!

  Discipline!

Cut her tongue.

 Let it bleed.

 So she is made silent.

They came back to me as quickly as I tried to forget them. The memories. The memories of pain and silence. The memories of feeling displaced and homeless. The memories of sitting in a classroom discussing critical theories about racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, gentrification, and so forth, plaguing social justice and equality— and not saying anything. The memories of feeling outside looking in: sitting in a classroom and observing people talking about you—your people—and not saying anything. Not because you have nothing to say, but rather because you don’t speak the language. The language of the ivory tower that somehow speaks like it understands “your problem” and yet has never truly lived in your place. Language evoked by peers who “know” what they are talking about. Bullshit. Yes I remember. I remember the pain. The pain embedded in the flesh from every word thrown around like it meant something. And it did to me—these words illustrated to me that in order to act like I am knowledgeable, to act like a scholar, then I must speak differently. I do not forget this pain.

I use to sit in classrooms silent. Classrooms filled with chalk and dry erase boards. Desk and chairs that were not designed for my body. Legs dangling. Feet not touching the floor. Classrooms with seminar tables overly possessing the space in the room. Chairs surrounding all angles, as if we were equals sitting at the same table. Equals with the same voice. But equality is a myth. And some voices are heard more than others. Some are silent. My voice was silent. For not fear of speaking. But because I didn’t speak like them—my “well read” peers, the mostly dead White male scholars we read, or the instructor. My tongue did not want to conform. Although sometimes it did, my tongue wanted those words out of my mouth as if they were laced in poison. That they would bring a slow and painful death. And so I sat in silence. A silence that was not passive. A silence that was not weak or fragile. No. This was a silence rooted in frustration and consciousness. This was a silence that was aware of the active disciplinary forces pursuing my tongue. Forces that wanted me—a light skinned, first generation college student, Chicana, daughter, sister, cousin, granddaughter, niece, partner, low-income, graduate student—to conform. To make it easy for them.

“I am trapped in a Foulcatian power system

That disciplines and punishes

Whose name is Higher Education” (Claudio Moreira, 2008).

My silence wouldn’t last. My tongue would not lay dormant. I yearned to talk back.

Codeswitcher. That is what I like to call myself. Someone who is able to switch between languages, between words, depending on the space and presence I am in. I learned this trait as a young girl. I learned through my mother’s pain: her continual objection of me speaking Spanish. My tongue had to speak PERFECT English. My tongue had to be disciplined. Forced into pronunciation molds—don’t roll your Rs/ speak clearly. Yet that was not enough. I had to perform this embodied tongue. And I did. At first I did not comprehend my mother’s stern discipline of my tongue. And then I saw. I saw her continually being mistaken for unintelligent by grocery store clerks, police officers, customers, and random strangers—even before she opened her mouth. I saw her pain and embarrassment. A pain and embarrassment my blond, blue-eyed father never experienced. Even at age 6, I knew and realized bodies mattered. They mattered with regard to who lived and died. To who was watched with suspicion and who could walk around freely. To who could speak and be heard by others. My mother wanted this for me. From her I learned that if I wanted to survive, I had to create my own rules of being.

And so I began to codeswitch. I began to imitate my father’s charm and sociability. I learned to play golf and rub elbows with the good ol’boys club. My tongue learned to say what people wanted to hear. My tongue learned their jokes: what do you call a pool full of Mexicans? Bean dip / Why do Mexicans make tamales during the holidays? So they have something to unwrap on Christmas. Laughed at them when I had to. I would codeswitch with everyone I knew. From space to space, my tongue performed differently. While my language was English, I did not speak the same language with all people. I learned to translate and borrow words depending on whom I was speaking with. Smiling as the words formed with my perfect pronunciation. My mother’s strict discipline of my tongue came into good use. I never forgot her lessons. I never forgot where I came from. And so I codeswitched out of act of survival, out of an illusion of protection (Lorde, 1984). I codeswitched to defend and embrace my racially ambiguous body, from and with others. I codeswitched in order to straddle my identities and to create a space for myself.

Yet, I do not codeswitch in the classroom any longer. No. That place is too hallowed of ground. That place does not get the privilege of me performing for them. No. I speak from my own tongue—not theirs. I will admit I know how to play the “academic game” well. I have learned to mimic. To act and say what is expected of me in the ivory tower. I can do it well. Very well. And to the point where I have been greatly rewarded. And yet, I will not codeswitch in the classroom. Why? Because words in the classroom, words that are so easily thrown around, construct and produce knowledges—and I will not be a part of the continual dislocation and separation of lived experience from theory within academic walls. A line dividing between those who “know” and those who “realize” (Sedgwick, 2003). Those who “know” theory and how it is applied to the everyday/those whose everyday experiences forms and informs theory. Both sides are necessary and critical to scholarship. Yet, we believe we must divide and conquer—that one is better and more legitimate than the other. Leaving those who “realize” in the outskirts/ the silent shadowy realm of the classroom. And those who “know” speaking for all.

Sitting in silence. I did not talk like them. I could not pull memorized lines of Butler or Foucault from the tip of my tongue. I could not master the language and construct my sentence like so. My close readings of texts embodied the emotion, the pain in the prose, not just the words. It wasn’t that I didn’t “get it.” I sure as hell “got it.” I understood every damn word presented in front of me: heteropatriarchy, homonormativity, queer, heteronormativity, historical materialism, and so forth . . . .I “got it” because it lived “it.” I lived those words. Those were not just words to be lightly thrown around in conversation or discussion of a book or article—no, these words were my experience. I live/lived their dictionary definitions. From my mother’s pain to my father’s privilege. I live/lived within their borderlands of trauma.

Sitting in classrooms. Some so painful/never wanting to return. Sitting in classrooms that simply enacted a viscous cycle of trauma that reopened healed wounds each time “class” was in session. “I’m a white man. You should be thanking me for talking about race.” “What do you know about racism? You are only HALF Mexican?” Sitting in classrooms where fellow women of color scholars would cry and no one acknowledged their pain. Sitting in classrooms where White women would cry and everyone turned to give support.

Sitting in anger, sitting in frustration. Not wanting to show my pain to them. Tears running down the inside of myself. Swallowing, tasting their salinity. My eyes filled with pain of silence. Where was my voice? Where was my perspective? Was the only way to be included to speak like them? My tongue had tried and failed to speak that way. My tongue could not, would not do this. Tripping on itself, creating a butchered spectacle of sounds. Like a child throwing a fit, my stubborn tongue twisted itself into difficult positions every time I tried to speak like that—in an act of resistance and deviance, as if it knew those words didn’t belong in my mouth. And so I would fail. I failed my mother’s perfect pronunciation. Failed to speak like them. Failed to act like a scholar in the classroom. Failed to codeswitch into the “well read.” Failed to separate my lived experiences from my theoretical examinations and discussions.

But scholar I am. I know it. My tongue may not conform to their standards, but my words will never be theirs. My words weigh with experience. Impressed with the memories of witnessing my father’s White friends joking if I was really his child. Looks of disbelief and suspicion painted across their eyes and faces. The memories of teachers in my honors and AP classes asking for my class schedule looking for proof it was a mistake I was assigned to their class. Looks of disbelief and suspicion painted across their eyes and faces. The memories of older women calling me a tramp while I held my baby brother in the grocery store. Trying to explain that he was not my child. Looks of disbelief and suspicion painted across their eyes and faces. Yes, I remember all of their words. I remember their eyes. I remember the looks. Stares and glances my mother tried to protect me from. My words embody these memories.

My words weigh with theory—maybe not their theory, but still theory. Theory that I embody. Theory that helps me make sense of my life and experience. Theories of discrimination, marginalization, privilege, pain, loss, trauma, resistance, deviance, and hope. Theories described and spoke by my foremothers: hooks, Moraga, Rich, Lorde, Smith, Minh-ha, and Anzaldua. Words that have come from their mouths to mine, to my tongue. These words belonged in my mouth. They swim and swish in my mouth, coating my tongue with their power and authority. My ability as a codeswitcher allows me to put into conversation these words with the words derived from the blood, sweat, and tears of my family and community. I translate and speak these words; affording them new hybridity/ a new embodiment of meaning. These words stem from the backbones of survival, and live, hauntingly and spectrally, in my body/in my tongue. The words, full of the affective realities of both the past and present, conjure the ability to name the unknown (Gordon, 2008).

Where do I belong if I do not belong

 Here.

Where am I to call

 Home?

We yearn to belong. I yearn to belong. But the price of the ticket is steep (Baldwin, 1985), at home and in the academy. My friends and family often ask when will I be done with school. Soon, I respond. My aunt Robin loves to constantly remind me that if I got a degree in accounting I would be making US$100,000 by now. If I said that wasn’t tempting, I would be lying. Yet, the academy calls. Maybe not for my voice or words, but for who I represent: a racially ambiguous, easily approachable, racialized female body. But just like the price of the ticket, nothing comes for free. They do not get my body without my tongue/ without my words. Yes I may have failed to speak like them, but my failure presented possibilities. Possibilities of defiance. Possibilities of hope. Possibilities of new knowledge production. And possibilities of being/belonging.

My words are an extension of my flesh. My theory is an extension of my life. They are the bread and wine, the Eucharist, of my scholarship. While I temporarily strayed into temptation, I strayed for safety and survival. I strayed to forget the pain. But I have taken my communion, and forgive myself for the past. I forgive myself for sitting in silence. I forgive myself for not unbinding my tongue, and rather biting it. I have learned from this mouth wound (Weems, 2003). I accept the memories of blood clots choking my voice. I accept the pain that comes with this terrain and qualitative scholarship. Not only accept, but also embrace as a form of resistance to the academic status quo. I embrace my wounds as sites of learning and transcendence.

I speak with a wound in my mouth

A wound that has bled for a

 Long time.

A wound that has gagged me from

 Speaking

A wound that has silenced my

 Voice.

But this wound is healing.

And the healing pains are subsiding

But they are not

 Forgotten.

They will never be forgotten

As they will always be

In the periphery of

 Consciousness.