Analysis of Hunger of Memory and Self Essay

Another way Rodriguez explores and conveys his conflicted feelings is with use of tropes. He uses rhetorical question, which is asking a question, not for the purpose of eliciting an answer but for the purpose of asserting or denying something obliquely. The most effective rhetorical questions in conveying his feelings is in the second to last paragraph. He questions things such as “How shall I present the argument between comedy and tragedy, this tension that describes my life? Shall I start with the boy’s chapter, then move toward more

Rodriguez struggles to fit in the “American Society” because he is bilingual. He feels the most safe when he speaks Spanish, hearing or speaking English sets fear in him. The first fear he encounters when hearing or speaking English that

On the one hand, English was the language used to communicate with outsiders. It was a tool for survival and held no personal meaning. It was crucial for public success. On the other hand, in Richard Rodriguez’s own words: “Spanish was associated with closeness”. By reading the previous passage, we can clearly infer that Spanish was the key to Richard’s confort. Hearing Spanish brought Rodriguez feelings of love, acceptance, family, and security. Spanish was a reminder of home and seemed to him a private language. In other words, he was surrounded by a web built by the family love and security which is conveyed by using the Spanish language, as the following passage shows: “...Spanish seemed to me the language of home...It became the language of joyful return...”. Moreover, if we consider the following passage:”You belong here. We are family members. Related. Special to one another” it is possible to say that Spanish language made Rodriguez felt as part of his family, creating a feeling of belonging and reinforcing family ties and ethnic heritage.

Rodriguez offers a different standpoint on bilingualism, and an argument he presents is that one must be willing to give up part of their native ways when learning a language to fit into the public. Rodriguez considered Spanish a private language and English a public one. This perception made him reluctant to learn English, but at the same time, it motivated him to become a part of the public by learning its language. Rodriguez uses his family life as an example of his native identity. He was not an English speaker when he was young, but upon learning the language, he drifted away from his family, and describes it rather frankly: “I was an American citizen. But the special feeling of closeness at home was diminished by then. . . . No longer so close; no longer bound tight by the pleasing and troubling knowledge of our public separateness . . . . When I arrived home there would often be

As a young child, Rodriguez finds comfort and safety in his noisy home full of Spanish sounds. Spanish, is his family's' intimate language that comforts Rodriguez by surrounding him in a web built by the family love and security which is conveyed using the Spanish language. "I recognize you as someone close, like no one outside. You

By contrast, Richard Rodriquez, in his article entitled "Aria", strongly believes in surrendering to learning the proper English language, despite how strongly he feels his native tongue is a private language that once functioned to unite his family. Rodriguez creates a division of a public and a private discourse. He feels that he has a ‘right to learn the public language of los gringos'. He creates a visual clash of two worlds: a public world as represented by school and the need to learn English; and a private world as represented by his family and the use of Spanish within the home. He feels that in order to adapt and create assimilation that he needs to abandon the comfort of using Spanish to communicate and force himself to learn English – even if it meant alienating his family members.

With all the negative thoughts and feelings about his family, Rodriguez never took the time to repair his relationship with him and his family, because books were very important to him than his family. As Rodriguez begin to separate from his family and culture, his Spanish accent also begin to disappear, which he felt very excited. In the beginning of his article he talked about the first day, he enters the class and could “barely able to speak English” (239). Rodriguez felt that he did not fit in with the rest

Rodriguez begins to become more involved in his classroom by his new grip on the English language. He shares fewer and fewer words with his mother and father. His tone now transforms into guilt. As Rodriguez's public language becomes more fluent, he forgets how to speak Spanish. "I would have been happier about my public success had I not recalled, sometimes, what it had been like earlier, when my family conveyed its intimacy through a set of conveniently private sound.? He begins to break out of the cocoon as a slow or disadvantaged child and blooms into a regular kid in his white society that only uses English. He feels a great sense of betrayal of his Mexican past. His connection that held him so close to his family is destabilized.

Rodriguez also shows us that he has gained the “sociological imagination” by writing about his appreciation and understanding

This separation from his family caused a longing in his life. But this longing was superseded by what he suspected his teachers could give him. Rodriguez develops a double personality of sorts. The person he is at home, the polite child who lovingly does what his parents ask of him. And then the academic persona he

The particular focus of Rodriguez’s story is that in order to feel like he belonged to the “public society” he had to restrict his individuality. Throughout his story, Rodriguez discussed such topics as assimilation and heritage. He goes into depth about the pros and the cons of being forced to assimilate to the American culture. Growing up Hispanic in America was a struggle for Rodriguez. This was due to the fact that he was a Spanish-speaking boy living in an English-speaking society, and he felt like he was different than the other children. Rodriguez writes, “I was fated to be the ‘problem student’ in class” (Rodriguez 62). This is referring to Rodriguez’s improper knowledge of English. It made him stand out as the kid that was behind. He wanted to find the balance between the public and private face. He believed both were important to develop. As I read this story it changed the way I looked at people who speak different languages, and how it must be hard to fit in with society if you are not all fluent in English.

Through both Tan and Rodriguez lives, they were faced with the challenge of choosing between the private languages that they spoke and shared with their family and the public language that was accepted by society. In Tan’s home, her mother combined their native Chinese language with English words she was familiar with. This subsequently formed a comfortable language that was only used within their family. Similar to Tan, Rodriguez grew up sharing Spanish, his native language, as a private language between parents and

Rodriguez was torn apart his “private” life and his “public” life. Private as in referring to the language spoken and home and the Spanish heritage at home. Public as in referring to his quite life at school where Rodriguez was intimidated by “high syllables” and the way people talked fast English. This quote illustrated how the need of

Rodriguez is ashamed. He is ashamed with the fact his espanol is no longer his main language. The author presents, “I grew up a victim to a

To begin with, Rodriguez’s first step to finding his identity began when his parents decided to move to the states to start a new life. At first, he was completely lost because he couldn’t understand the language. However, as time went by his English began to improve with the help of his parents helping him practice English at home. As he becomes more educated, he felt that a distance grew between him and his parents. “Here is a child who cannot forget that his academic success distances him from a life he loved, even from his own memory of himself” (Rodriguez 51). Rodriguez was connected with his family through his private identity. However, his distance with his parents began to appear as he advanced in English. As he starts to become fluent in English, he would talk to his parents less and less. His Spanish skills also started to deteriorate. Spanish is the language that gave him a sense of closeness to his family and is what separated him from the public. However, once he started to develop his public identity, he started losing his private identity. Rodriguez’s parents provided him with his own private identity and help him and supported him in developing his public identity to success.