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Evan Deschenes
ENG 101.16
Language as Inseparable from Cultural Identity
James Baldwin and Haunani-Kay Trask’s understanding of language’s connection
to cultural identity have many overlapping thoughts that through Baldwin’s text, can
validate Trask’s approach to this topic. Author James Baldwin makes the claims that
Black English is rooted into American history and has made a very effective mark on
language in the United States. He believes that the role of language define the speaker
and ones identity. Trask’s understanding of this topic is very heavily impacted by the
information she writes about to what historians provide. Her interest in culture and
attitude towards history has led her to feel a strong sense of division in the world between
whites and natives and languages connection to identity. The impact that language has
had on Trask and her culture throughout her life can be validated through Baldwin’s text.
James Baldwin has a very certain understanding of language and the connection it
draws to the cultural identity of a person or even a whole community. Culture affects how
language is used, it allows one to identify with or separate
from a different culture.
Baldwin states, “It goes without saying, then, that language is also a political instrument,
means, and proof of power. It is the most vivid and crucial key to identify: It reveals the
private identity, and connects one with, or divorces one from, the larger, public, or
communal identity.” Baldwin reveals the way language shapes and is formed by life’s
circumstances. Baldwin uses the example of three French men from three completely
different parts of the world even though they all speak the same language! These men
would not understand each other even though they all speak the same tongue, which
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makes sense of Baldwin’s statement that, “People evolve a language in order to describe
and thus control their circumstances, or in order not to be submerged by a reality that
they cannot articulate.” In Baldwin’s work he confronts the controlling purpose that
language is also a political instrument, driven with power. It is the most crucial part to
ones identity and throughout history it can be seen that at times and even today, speaking
certain languages or saying specific phrases or words in different places can be not
accepted or even disrespectful. The amount of power a society or group can hold is all
gained from their language and use of communication. These examples stated by
Baldwin justify Trask’s connection of language to cultural identity.
Trask has an understanding of language’s connection to cultural identity through
her experience and understanding of her society in Hawaii within the world. Throughout
her life Trask felt a strong sense of division in the world between whites and natives.
After she received her Ph.D. in school she saw the world as even more divided. There
was the world she lived in (her people’s ancestors family) vs. the world the history
perceived and described. Tradition, family, spirit, and local knowledge are at the heart of
defining the Native Hawaiian identity. That community can be found in the homesteads,
in the ghettos, or on the beaches. Single individuals do not create the societal construct of
the native Hawaiian identity; it is categorically widespread throughout the islands, the
mainland United States and even around the world. Trask mentions that, historians
described Hawaiians as “A primitive group, Hawaiians had been ruled by bloodthirsty
priests and despotic kings who owned all the land and kept our people in feudal
subjugation. The chiefs were cruel, the people poor.” (394) However Trasks mother told
the story completely differently. “No one had owned the land before the haole came;
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everyone could fish and pant, except during sacred periods. And the chiefs were good and
loved their people.” Assumptions and false accusation of these natives leave people of the
United States and anyone not from the mainland of Hawaii to believe these historians.
We can see in Baldwin’s example of using language as a political instrument how this
may make sense of Trask’s voice that the empowerment behind the traditions. The local
knowledge, and the stories, which are passed down over years and years, is what create
the Hawaiian language and identity. The language and cultural aspects of communities
especially of Hawaii have been lost over time and through Trask’s text she wants portray
the message that change can happen when a voice is heard with willingness to preserve
the spirit of old, the progress of new, and the identity of self.
In order to validate Trask’s understanding of cultural identity and the role
language plays through Baldwin’s text, one must acknowledge both author’s discernment
of an inseparable link between a people’s culture and a people’s identity. By seeing
Trask’s passion to revitalize and bring back Hawaii’s original traditions, culture, and
language It can help revitalize a typically American perception that Hawaii is about a
place to vacation, a strategic military location, or where aloha shirts come from; it can
demonstrate the voice of one of its citizens speaking freely. And it goes without saying
that Baldwin believes that language is such a crucial part to the identity of people in a
community that without these traditions and aspects that are at the heart of defining the
native Hawaiian identity, the language is not as strong and therefor slowly lost. Society
will start to dissipate and the origins and culture can easily be lost as seen in Hawaii
through Trasks book and her own experience. Baldwin’s understanding of language’s
connection to cultural identity can be easily used to make sense of Trask’s understanding.
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