In Gloria Anzaldua's article, "Tlilli Tlapalli: The Path of the Red and Black Ink," she starts by giving her background as child.  She would stay up late at night, reading under her covers.  She tried to hide this from her mother, but sharing a bed with her sister, she was threatened.  Her sister told her that if she would not read her a story every night that she would tell mother she reads under the covers.  One story soon turned into two stories a night.  Gloria explains that you could coax any Mexican into telling a story just by nudging them.  Gloria tells the reader how writing makes her cope with things easier.  If she does not write for a period of time it sickens her, yet she finds herself getting caught up in seventeen hours straight of writing.  She uses writing as a symbol or a way to explain things in her every day schedule.  Some societies accept art differently, or the way of writing.  In saying this, she is speaking of the Western and tribal cultures.  She reconstructs ideas through writing, making them as images or 'scenes'.  Gloria says this heals her, and makes her have great joy.  Sometimes she will shut herself out from everything, put headphones on, cover her eyes, and just connect the images in her head to writing or soundtracks.  To write or be a writer, Gloria believes a person must trust and believe in themselves as a speaker.  A lack of belief in the creative self is a lack of belief in the total self.  Images, words, and stories must arise from the human body to be transformed into different ways of writing.

COMPARE
     I would compare Gloria's article with the video we were shown towards the beginning of the semester called, "Beyond the Red Ink".  While they may have similar titles, that is not why I would choose the two.  The video we had watched not only explained the way a paper could be graded, but the meaning behind the words.  When a teacher grades a paper, they might be using red ink.  The red ink is not what is important, but the words behind the ink.  Gloria's article goes into agreeing with this, because behind the red and black ink comes images, stories, personal experiences.  Once the ink is written on the paper, there is meaning behind the words.  It is up to the reader to figure out the puzzle of what the words mean, and how they affect them in a positive or negative way.  When grading a paper it could be the positive or negative depending on how well the paper is written.  When reading a story it depends on how passionate the writer feels about what he or she has written.

QUESTION
      I understood her article, and what she meant by her use of examples.  I did have one question, and that is what did the different languages in her writing mean?  I wish they would have been translated, and I could know more of her ideas.  I understand that is her language and culture, but to reach out to everyone it should have been translated or expressed where everyone could understand it.


OPINION
     Overall, I enjoyed reading this article, because she used a personal experience.  I appreciate when a writer uses a personal experience when expressing their ideas.  It gives their reading background information.  It could also help to show why the feel so strongly to write what they are writing about.  Towards the end, I was kind of thrown off as to why she talks about a pregnant woman being up all night.  I then came to terms that she used that as an example to express how writing could keep her up all night, just like an unborn child could keep a pregnant woman awake.  She used very useful examples to help me understand her reading, and gain a little of knowledge from it as well.