Aria A Memoir Of A Bilingual Childhood Analysis

In “Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” by Richard Rodriguez, he reveals the hardships he faced growing up as a young Hispanic boy with a bilingual tongue in an American Society. Rodriguez felt that being bilingual was more of a burden rather than an advantage, by cause of his parents not allowing him to speak English in their home, he felt that he was being yielded from learning English as well as impeding his social growth outside of his home. Rodriguez argues that because of his alienation from the community and lack of orientation in self-identity, he believes that bilingual education should not be something that should be integrated into a child’s life, but have children assimilate to the country they are in as well as the predominant

On the other hand the “public” language was the language that he felt threatened by. He says that he can only hear sounds people make while speaking English instead of the actual words. He remembers that those words sounded like ,"So many words were still unknown to me that when the butcher or the lady at the drugstore said something, exotic polysyllabic sounds would bloom in the midst of their sentences. Often speech in public seemed to me very loud, booming with confidence"(449) . To him whenever someone spoke English it was a complete blur .It was like he was living in a different world different to what he was used to. It wasn't until he realised that everyone around him aside from his family spoke the English language .Once he started learning English, he slowly began to realize that he needed to learn it in order to fit in society. Receiving bilingual education taught him that it was a must to learn both Spanish language and English language in order fit into the American society. And with that came the losse of his closeness to his family.

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.

Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood by Richard Rodriguez is an essay that shows his readers a part of life that many have never experienced. Rodriguez uses this essay to show how he fights through his childhood to understand English. Speaking clear English will help him to fit in to society. He faces society while forfeiting his happy home life, to try to become a typical English-speaking student.

Imagine the home of a peaceful and harmless bird becoming a shopping center. Trees are being cut down, homes are being destroyed and that simple life is becoming a chaotic mess full of disasters. In that situation the bird is expected to change so it can survive it’s new environment but will be able too? It is not going to be easy but at the end reality and peer pressure will take over. The essay “Aria; A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” by Richard Rodriguez is an amazing example of someone's world being completely change because of reality and peer pressure. This essay was first published in The American Scholar in 1981 to state his argument against bilingual education and the pro and cons of it using his personal experiences. Rodriguez did a amazing job with comparing and contrasting if it is best to speaking spanish or english as a bilingual child in america but at first made it difficult to understand his point of view.

Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood by Richard Rodriguez is an essay that shows his readers a part of life that many have never experienced. Rodriguez uses this essay to show how he fights through his childhood to understand English. Speaking clear English will help him to fit in to society. He faces society while forfeiting his happy home life, to try to become a typical English-speaking student.

Throughout his writing, Rodriguez utilizes ethos to express the loss of private individuality that comes with a bilingual education. When he was a student, Richard’s “teachers were unsentimental about their responsibilities” and they focused on the fact that what he needed to learn was to “speak public English”. They believed that it was more important for him to know and be able to use English rather than for him to feel comfortable while doing it. However, when his teachers forced him to “[assimilate] into public society”, they did not realize that by doing so, they were taking away all the things Rodriguez valued. After a long day of speaking English at school,

I find it interesting that while Rodriguez and Anzaldua came from comparable backgrounds they feel very differently about similar issues. Rodriguez believes that education should not be bilingual for children who come from Spanish speaking homes. Anzaldua on the other hand thinks that people should not be squashing the culture of these people, and should do what they can to help them preserve it. I think that in that sense one could compare Anzaldua and Rodriguez to the idea of American culture, as each are one extreme of how we view it. On the one hand we have Anzaldua, the idea that America is a melting pot, combining all of the different cultures of the different people living here to come up

During his childhood, he felt English was an obligation to fit in. As his family’s proficiency with English increased, their close ties with being solely Spanish speakers diminished: “We remained a loving family, but one greatly changed. No longer so close; no longer bound tight by the pleasing and troubling knowledge of our public separateness,” (lines 127-130). Growing apart from his family illustrates native Spanish speakers lose bonds because their shared identity no longer separates them from American

Richards essay describes how he has to “ trade” his Spanish language identity to find his “public” language identity . He remembers his parents trying their best to speak more English in their home to help their kids fit into society . He talks about how the fact that he lost one identity was worth the gain of the other identity he so longed for . “At last, seven years old, I came to believe what had been technically true since my birth: I was an American citizen” (454-455). It was at that moment that he knew for a fact that his whole life he was already an American citizen . To him beign an American citizen meant having an English language identity and being able to speak the public language. As a boy Rodriguez was able to only speak and understand the Spanish language . To him it was the only real identity he ever had growing up . He also discussed that because the Spanish language identity is developed among his family members. That the language is somehow responsible for how they were able to identify themselves

Rodriguez defines bilingualism as he elaborates on his story of learning English. Arriving to the US and only speaking Spanish challenged him and his family. Their home illuminated a safe place, a place where he could speak Spanish. At school, his teachers would call on him purposefully trying to make him speak/learn English. In despair he mumbled, until the day his safe place disappeared when his parents began to speak English at home. Now with no outlet, he attempts to raise his hand in class and communicate with others. This monumental shift of avoiding speech to trying to communicate helps Rodriguez explain “Sound and word were thus tightly wedded” (23). The liberating moment where he can comfortably communicate with others without such a big effort rewards Rodriguez, for he can fit in with society: “And the point was not self expression alone but to make oneself understood by many others” (21). To talk comfortably with others provides a source for community and self expression. Although Rodriguez had a difficult time learning another language, he views bilingualism as someone who can fit in with multiple communities and has a balance of public and private life.

Bilinguals in America experience unfair treatment and are looked at differently if English is not their native language. The subject of bilingualism is not a topic many are educated on. Uneducated English speakers use their dominance and popularity of their language to treat Spanish speakers like their language and culture does not belong in our country. Martin Espada and Richard Rodriguez speak of bilingualism in their well published essays, and they write about the struggles that American citizens face when they are bilingual in Spanish and English. This essay will clearly show each writer’s definition and arguments on bilingualism and my argument on the topic.

The tide turned again with the 1994 Clinton Administration reauthorization of the Bilingual Education act, also known as the Improving America’s Schools Act, which promoted bilingual education for the first time not just to help immigrants learn English, but also as way to develop the human capital of the nation and promote American competitiveness in the global economy. The result of this extension was the expansion of developmental bilingual education, which included “two-way” bilingual programs serving both mainstream and language-minority students (Nieto,

Consequently, federal policies towards language issues at the mid-20th century saw a shift in the direction of educational initiatives. Specifically, the Bilingual Education Act of 1968 drew attention to the issue of educating “Limited English Proficient” children--immigrants or second-generation children of immigrant parents. In contrast to the permissive attitude of mid-19th century policies, as seen in the maintenance of German in churches and community schools, especially in the Midwest (Schiffman 221), the goal of the Bilingual Education Act (although not overtly stated) was to provide LEP students with sufficient training in their native language in order to speed up their acquisition of English (Beykont 3). Under federal funding, most programs labeled “bilingual” usually serve as transitional, with fluency in English as the goal. In general, considerations for maintenance of the native language are peripheral at best, and in some cases completely overlooked (Schiffman, Bekyont, Portes & Rumbaut).

Bilingual Education has been an ongoing theme for many immigrants since they first arrived in the land of opportunity, America. Many immigrant parents have sacrificed everything for their child to have a profitable future, unlike themselves. Bilingual education has been present to help immigrants assimilate into the American community, but does it help them? Or does it hold them back from reaching their full potential? Many who don't make it past bilingual programs are often stuck and secluded from regular classrooms. After reading “Aria,” by Richard Rodriguez, I decided to research bilingual education and how it affects assimilation for Asian immigrants in the United States. The question I chose to ask, to further my investigation was; What is the criteria for bilingual education and how does it affect assimilation for Asian immigrants?