Marjorie Agosin is a professor of Spanish at Wellesley College as well as an essayist, poet, and human rights activist. In the essay “Always Living in Spanish,” translated by Celeste Kostopulos-Cooperman, and the poem “English,” translated by Monic Bruno, Agosin
Reading: Min-Zhan Lu’s “From Silence to Words”
“My mother withdrew into silence two months before she died. A few nights before she fell silent, she told me she regretted the way she had raised me and my sisters. I knew she was referring to the way he
Reading: James Baldwin’s “If Black English Isn’t a Language”
In this opinion piece, James Baldwin makes a cogent, well-reasoned, and passionate argument that Black English, or African American Vernacular English, is a language. Not a dialect, but a language. He begins by chronicling various reasons for languages to arise—the need
Reading: June Jordan’s “Nobody Mean More to Me”
In “Nobody Mean More to Me Than You and the Future Life of Willie Jordan,” poet, essayist, and activist June Jordan, argues for the legitimacy of Black English, now often referred to as African American Vernacular English, by intertwining two
Reading: Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue”
In this literacy narrative, Amy Tan explores her language and identity by reflecting on her mother’s language use. Tan writes that, “Lately, I’ve been giving more thought to the kind of English my mother speaks. Like others, I have described