Richard Rodriguez Public And Private Language

     Rodriguez's parents think they are doing the best job possible raising their three children. Being a lower class family, money was not something that was always available. His mother and father can always supply them with love and nurturing. The way they let their children know they are special and close is to talk to them in their private language. His parents could not speak good English; they could not translate their terms of endearment for the children without the saying losing its meaning. "Using Spanish, he (the father) was quickly effusive...his voice would spark, flicker, flare alive with varied sounds.? Only speaking English, the father is a completely different person.

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.

Soon after his first opinion is stated, Rodriguez dives into another story, this time detailing his mother and father’s struggle to speak English in public: “In public, my father and mother spoke a hesitant, accented, and not always grammatical English. And then they would have to strain, their bodies tense, to catch the sense of what was rapidly said by los gringos. At home, they returned to Spanish. The language of their Mexican past sounded in counterpoint to the English spoken in public. The words would come quickly, with ease” (Rodriguez 572). This is the sad fate of many immigrants, as well as many people learning to speak a second language. The fact that this young boy noticed that his parents struggled is touching and sweet, while

Richard Rodriguez, an American author of an abundance of best-selling novels, believes there is a difference between “private language”, the language spoken with his family (Spanish) and “public language”, the language spoken with nonfamily members (English). In his short essay, “Public and Private Language,” Rodriguez argues that when bilingual people begin to distinguish the difference between their private and public language, they lose part of their identity which defines their culture and most importantly defines who they are; in spite of becoming incorporated in public society the people grew distant from their Spanish roots and families. In this short essay, I will examine three specific reasons why Rodriguez believes private language

They didn’t know very much english so they raised my two older brothers, little sister & I in spanish. This became our first language, we later learned english while attending elementary school. Luckily, we were able to grasp the language concept so it easily became our second language. Like Rodriguez stated in The Hunger of Memory “my mother and father addressed me only in Spanish; in Spanish I learned to reply.” (Rodriguez 12) I can relate to his autobiography

Rodriguez was not the only one who did not have the confidence and felt comfortable in English. “In public, my father and mother spoke hesitant, accented, not always grammatical English” (Rodriguez 536). They were not ashamed of where they came from but because they were well aware of the fact that they did not sound like gringos. Their voice and the tones were lower compared to when they spoke in Spanish. “I was unable to hear my own sounds, but I know very well that I spoke English poorly” (Rodriguez 536).

English might not be the official language of the American nation; however, every immigrant knows that it is the language of the North American country and that it

According to the 2011 census, over 20.8 percent of the United States population spoke another language other than English (www.us-english.org). Language barriers, cultural differences, and immigration have been a part of life in the United States for decades. Language is considered a vital tool in the construction of someone’s identity and an expression of culture. In the last 200 years immigrants have chosen to make the United States their home, but some proceeded with caution by slowly adapting to the English language and culture.

As immigration, both legal and illegal, brings a flood of foreign speech into the U.S., a campaign to make English our nation's official language gathers more and more strength. The importance of preserving our own cultural backgrounds, including native languages, is not being overlooked. There is, however a major problem with communication and unity within the country.

When people come to the United States of America, they experience changes and many hardships. One of the biggest difficulties for them is not speaking English. In addition to having a hard time adopting to a new life and language, immigrants are usually oppressed by the English speaking population and have to deal with much discrimination due to their lack of English. As the United States was growing as a nation, Americans were hard on the non-English speakers in the name of good will. Whether they were Native Americans, slaves, Latinos, from south western territories, or European and Asian immigrants, the United States passed many laws that restricted the use of their native language in order to restrict their opportunities. America oppressed the non-English speakers by taking away many of their rights, forcing them to learn new ways of living, and threatening them with deportation.

For example, his father would open up and act as a complete different person when speaking Spanish with relatives and people who would speak the Spanish language. Rodriguez describes how his father would talk in Spanish, “… quickly effusive. Especially when talking with other men, his voice would spark, flicker, flare alive with sounds” (244). The fact that his father embraces his true Mexican identity, made him feel like he was being true to himself inside that then would display to the outside. To not change into completely leaving the Mexican culture they have, they need to use this same perception on the English side as well. Therefore, allowing the father to show his true individuality and using it as an advantage to learning

“Despite about 18% of the U.S. population natively speaking a different tongue than English, a full 96% of United States citizens speak English fluently” (Whiskey 2012). Today in our society, a large majority of American citizens speak English and continue teaching those at a young age to resume this trend in the future. Although there is a minor percent of people whom come to America speaking a foreign language, many of them are learning and practicing the English language as a requirement for success in America. America originated with English being the superior language and shall continue to do so in respect to this nation by coming together as a whole to attain future achievement.

The United States has always been the land of the free, a quality that attracted many immigrants in search of a new life. As a result, the U.S is one of the most heterogeneous countries in the world. Today, three hundred and eleven languages are spoken in the U.S (Rhein, 2007). While the U.S has no official language, English is the most commonly spoken language in the country. Ever since the 1980’s, there has been a phenomenon known as the English-Only Movement, which is driven by those who believe English should be made the official language of the U.S. This phenomenon began in the 1980’s when Americans started to fear that immigrant languages would take over English (Crawford, 1998). For the past three decades, this movement has continued to have an impact in the U.S. Some of the common justifications for making English the official language is that it would make America more unified and it would improve the lives of immigrants (Brice, 2014). Another common justification is that it would save the federal government billions of dollars. The government spends large amounts of money every year to keep multilingualism alive, and it is in turn hurting the economy. Multilingualism has also had a major effect on the grades of school children who do not speak fluent English. Since the 1980’s, many governments have made efforts to reduce multilingualism. In order to improve the lives of immigrants, the economy and the grades of students in the U.S, English should be

Rodriguez on the other hand talks about his own life in his early years where he had to learn english with his family. Rodriguez goes more into identity, and how he hopes to gain his “public” identity(for him it was english) while retaining private identity(spanish). Rodriguez 's idea of bilingualism is having an identity in a public language and comfort with those who speak it. For him to obtain comfort with public identity and those who speak it he loses some intimacy with his family “gone was the desperate, urgent, intense feeling of being at home; rare was the experience of feeling myself individualized by family intimates. We remained a loving family, but one greatly changed. No longer so close; no longer bound tight by a pleasing and troubling knowledge of our public separates” (Rodriguez 24) Although Rodriguez lost his anxiety with speaking english in front of others, but in exchange he lost some affection with his family. Rodriguez thinks of bilingualism essentially as comfort with the public, finding that public identity; however, sometimes you may have to give something up or a part of something to gain public identity

Learning English has always opened doors for immigrants and their families, allowing them to enter the American mainstream. Once upon a time, immigrants were eager to learn English. Over the last two generations, though, that ideal has been distorted. English is not our official language now, and that means government has to provide services in dozens of languages to accommodate non-English-speaking people. As the government provides immigrants with bilingual education; government-funded interpreters in schools, police departments and hospitals; with dual-language drivers license exams, tax forms, voting ballots, and services, it has made it easy for them not to learn English. City services are all provided in Spanish, employees at most businesses