Richard Rodriguez In Public Summary

The character Gaby Rodriguez in the novel The Pregnancy Project, written by Gaby Rodriguez and Jenna Glatzer, changes throughout the years and understands what it is like to be living in a world of stereotypes. Living in a family filled with past generations of teen pregnancies, Gaby was often told she would end up like her sisters. From other people’s perspectives, this was a family tradition. As her senior project, she faked a pregnancy to get reactions from her friends, family, and the community to see how she would be treated. Gaby went through many hardships to understand what a teen mom has to deal with on a day to day basis.

There are both positive and negative aspects of learning a language, but people are likely to equalize two sides and try not to lose the relationships with their family and the society. Amy Tan, in “Mother Tongue” and Richard Rodriguez in “Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” explain how they viewed their private and public languages through their experiences and how they managed these two languages and established themselves in the society. Tan initially felt ashamed of her private language and favored the public language; however, in the end she showed that she could manage the balance between the languages and finally utilized both in public. On the other hand, Rodriguez preferred his private language which made him feel comfortable;

Amy Tan and Junot Diaz on their stories they talked about they don’t speak their languages. Both of them find it difficult to speak different languages like Junot Diaz he went Santo Domingo for a vacation with his wife and it’s been twenty years that he has been over and people over there looking at him cause he doesn’t look Dominican and he barely speaks Spanish. For Amy tan she talked about how her mother was a stockbroker in New York and the people she work with doesn’t understand her English and she is Chinese. People this world will look at different cause of your Ethnicity and if you don’t speak their language they will treat wrong.

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.

Although bilingual education has some merit, avoiding the implementation of the more popular language of a community is detrimental to the incorporation of mostly you people in society and hinders their ability to develop a keen sense of identity. For example, "language gets learned as it gets used (7).” In other words, one masters the language as he speaks it. Speaking and language skills tend to sharpen if they are used regularly. Rodriguez argues that learning both languages and using them rather than leaving one begins to lead to a better sense of identity and freedom. But according to Rodriguez it makes one become insecure, growing up

Credibility is something that takes a lot of time to gain, but can be lost in an instance. When someone or something is credible that means they are easily trusted or believed in because of what they have done in the past. For example Nike lost some credibility when new came out they were producing their products in sweatshops across the world. However since that they have worked on that problem and gained back their credibility, but it took some time. Credibility is a great quality to have, it means you are trustworthy and people respect you. Furthermore Alex Rodriguez is another example that shows why credibility is an important quality and how cheating affects it.

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.

When Rodriguez’s brings up his bilingual childhood, at the time when he had difficulties with English, he tells about how he only spoke Spanish while at home using it as “my private language, my family’s language,” informing the reader that while at home he was able to speak Spanish with an ease feeling that he belonged (Rodriguez 573). However, whenever outside of his house he sensed that “the sounds of the gringo, reminded me that in this so-big world I was a foreigner,” still new to the language, he felt that he did not belong (Rodriguez 593-594). Only after his parents began speaking to him in English and asking him “speak to us en ingles” Rodriguez felt encouraged to learn classroom English, which led to him taking a leap and answering a question in class giving him “the calming assurance, that I belong in public,” feeling part of the classroom when he was understood by the others (Rodriguez 577). He also had thoughts like “I finally came to accept what had been technically true since my birth:

Marcela said the she never felt like she struggled once she got to Kindergarten and that she learned pretty quickly because she was surrounded by English. Marcela mentioned that one of her teachers was pretty hands off with her, not much eye contact and didn’t really teach her words, but other teachers made her feel welcome and were nice by the time she learned more english. She shared that her parents did not learn as quickly. Her father now speaks, Spanish, Italian and English. She said his job required him to eventually speak in all those languages. Her mother still speaks mostly Spanish and she wasn’t exposed to the English language very often because she worked in a Spanish speaking environment. Marcela believes that they didn’t pick up that language as quickly because they weren't surrounded by it like she was. Marcela says she speaks both English and Spanish fluently with no accent in either language. She can switch from one language to the other very quickly, especially when she speaking to her

He describes to the readers how he kept his private and public identities separate--his home being the private area where he spoke Spanish with his family and “the outside world” such as school where he was forced to speak English. Rodriguez shows a lost connection between his family because of learning a new language when he says, “The old Spanish words I had earlier used-mama and papa- I couldn’t use anymore.. On the other hand, the words I heard neighborhood kids call their parents seemed equally unsatisfactory… As a result, I never used them. Whenever I’d speak to my parents, I would get their attention by looking at them.” This shows that after English became Rodriguez’s main language, he’s become unsure of how he should address his parents or how he should start a conversation with them. He loses the connection and the intimacy that was once there has vanished. However, keeping your culture and language alive is important because it is very beneficial. When you keep your language it makes it easier for children to bond and connect with relatives who may not know English and also making it possible for the language to continue being passed down from generation to generation. Even though, it’s almost necessary to learn English when coming to the United States, it’s important to note that you should never

The reader can agree with though with Rodriguez’s idea that not knowing the public language is a disadvantage to private language speakers and that bilingual education causes distant families.

Language is a very important and significant part of individuals’ life. It is considered as one of the best device of social behavior. Language is a means with the help of which people communicate and send a social message to one another. But language does have very special characteristics according to which it changes and very depending on many factors. According to the researchers there are no two people who speak identically. Their languages vary as per their geographic location, age, gender, ethnicity, social background etc. many a time, it is observed that even the members from same family speak differently due to differences in their location ( Biber & Conrad, 2014). For example, in my neighborhood, there is a difference in the ways of

In America, there is a predominant growth in multiple ethnicities and cultural backgrounds; leading to the usage of multiple languages in the American culture. There is a growing need for many people to learn and utilize multiple languages within the workplace and within one 's own personal life. The importance of bilingualism and the knowledge of multiple languages is ever increasing, and therefore becoming more important for the younger generations. The push for knowing multiple languages and becoming bilingual has many potential negative and positive effects.

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

Also, people belittle a foreigner's native language. Mujica reports a known politician in favor of adopting English as the official language for the United States, and she felt the train of thought was dense (217). Foreigners are singled out, for not comprehending English. Rodriguez recalls a gringo [American or English person] rudely asking "What can I do for you?", Rodriguez sensed he could not adapt to the gringos society, but stay safely tucked away in his Spanish society (213). Also, people make a foreigner's native language feel too formal. Rodriguez describes the nun who introduced him to his first classroom in his new academic career, and how her voice echoed with a dullness, while she sounded each syllable of his Hispanic last name (212). Equally important, people insinuate English to foreigners. Youngquist and Martínez-Griego observed that many of the families at a local learning center spoke Spanish, and limited English, and tried to teach English to their children. Instead of helping their children learn English, it interrupted the learning development for both languages (92). Peopl humble a foriegner's language.