Anzaldúa contributes to our
understanding of rhetorical theory in a number of ways. First, by enacting the
unique, multiple voices of different populations, she disrupts the idea of
Rhetoric as an overarching, unified concept, prompting us to consider rhetoric
as a pluralistic discipline. Furthermore, by acknowledging, speaking from, and
theorizing about her multiple positions within the cultures she inhabits, she
speaks to the conceptual significance of agency and positionality. Finally, she
prompts us to consider the linguistic particularity of rhetoric, how each
language, by virtue of both its linguistic structure and social position, lends
itself to particular types of expression.
Anzaldúa destabilizes the idea of
rhetoric as a broad concept through her own discussions of her social positions
and the challenges she faces negotiating between different cultures. This is
particularly evident when she discusses the tensions between being accused of
being too white by other Mexican-Americans while being simultaneously rejected
by white Americans for her accent and language (1586-1587). Each situation,
each population, has its own particular rhetoric. And by virtue of her social
position, she does not have access to the means of persuasion within those
contexts. So just as she expresses the personal tension in her own life, she
illustrates the tension in broad, generalized concepts of rhetoric.
At the same time, Anzaldúa expresses
the significance of agency and positionality in theories of rhetoric. By
dwelling on her own multiple and sometimes contradictory positions, by
contrasting her role as a teacher in educational institutions that arose out of
colonialism, for instance, with her negative experiences in those same
institutions, she prompts a discussion about the role of personal agency within
the “public” dimensions of rhetoric.
Finally, Anzaldúa, by mixing English
and Spanish together throughout, illustrates the particularity of language in
rhetoric. I do not read Spanish, and so my experience reading the passages of
Spanish that she included caused me to think about the disorienting experience
of trying to navigate multiple languages, multiple cultures, and multiple
rhetorics. If I read Spanish, of course, I would have had a different
experience, but even that would be different from a native reader of Spanish
since I am a white male for whom Spanish would be a secondary language. And
that, I think, is the point. With Anzaldúa, rhetoric becomes more than just
figures, tropes, or canons – it becomes as personal as it is political, a way
of understanding and expressing our individual selves as much as it is about
participating in public and political discourse.
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