Short-hand Identity

This essay spoke to me on many different levels. I love her style! The splices of Spanish throughout really paint a picture of the broken-ness within her language. And the quotes that she popped in were very powerful. The reading was jolting in the way it skipped from her pros, to Spanish, to a quote or saying, and then back to her pros again. This made for an interesting read- I certainly was never bored.
There was a point on page 43, in the paragraph that begins with "As a culture...", where she tries to define what she calls herself. She has many different answers, and she says many of them are cop-outs. Her continued reference of copping out proves the point that the answer to this question is a detailed one that would require a lengthy explanation for full comprehension. Her replies would be a short-hand form for easy association. But identity, who we are, is not a simple answer.

And I loved the sentence: "Wild tongues can't be tamed, they can only be cut out." She is a very powerful writer.

the illiterate "reader"

The reader of a written language and the illiterate "reader" are of two different ilks. Having been a reader of written language most of my life, I have a very small grasp of what it must be like to be illiterate. This reading, "A World Without Print" by Victoria Purcell-Gates, gave me insight to the illiterate's experience. The illiterate "reader" is taking in a different kind of information than that of a literate person. They are not readers of words, but readers of colors, shapes and sizes. Whereas a simple word on the front of a store can tell a person what to expect in that store, the illiterate person needs to look at clues. They look at pictures in the store window, look at the type of sign that is posted and the size of the store, all in order to get clues of what they can find there. The external information is necessary to understand what one word can explain. The illiterate person must be fluent in deductive reasoning.
This reading shed light on what the thought-process of an illiterate person is and what the daily trials of a life without written language can be.