Rio Grande Valley Bilingual 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

Bilingual education offers a completely different world for students of different ethnic background and thus creates a comfort zone limiting the risk-taking factor necessary for the maturation of a child to an adult. Rodriguez argues supporters of bilingualism fail to realize "while one suffers a

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.

Being bilingual consist of two cultures and two languages, it builds into self identity. Spanish and English in America is seen as an advantage, and in Mexico it is seen as unique and educated. Due to past experience as a child and now as a young adult, I have seen both the disadvantages and advantages of being bilingual in the United States. Bilingual children in America are usually children of Mexican immigrants who learn no perfect Spanish, what they know is taught by their (most likely) uneducated parents. In school they are profited from learning the basics of their native language along with speaking it. Instead they are required to learn a new culture, a new language and new traditions. In other words, being Bilingual in America is

Rodriguez builds a formidable case against bilingual education with his bilingual childhood experiences. Rodriguez grew up speaking Spanish, but then learned how to speak English later in life so he knows what effects bilingual education has on bilingual kids who grew up speaking a private language at homes. When Rodriguez first came to the United States in Sacramento, California he understood “about fifty stray English words” (Richard Rodriguez “Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood”). He was a Mexican immigrant whose family only knew how to speak Spanish. The neighbors of Rodriguez’s family didn’t like them, so when they were out walking they would tell Rodriguez’s parents “Keep your brats away from my sidewalk!” (Rodriguez 571). Rodriguez loses the “special feeling of closeness at home” when he learned English (Rodriguez 577). Personal experiences are what makes him a credible author. Rodriguez used strong ethos and pathos appeals, but he didn’t use strong logos appeals. He didn’t use facts or reasoning in his memoir to prove his points against bilingual education.

Introduction - Being a part of a bilingual speaking family, like with my mom and dad who are Chinese immigrants, is an experience that no one can imagine unless you are part of a bilingual speaking family. Experiences such as knowing a language that not many of our neighbors don't know can be frustrating for both sides. Being young in my early years, learning English was not only a struggle for me but for my family. I noticed that my parents struggled learning english and communicating with the outside world. From buying groceries to paying for the bills, I observed the painful experiences that my parents persevere through all these years. I was glad public schools gave me the opportunity to not only learn English but to help my family live in this English superior society.

A 12-year-old boy living in a small farming village outside of Matamoras, Mexico comes home one day from school and is informed by his parents that the family is moving to Texas to stay with his aunt and uncle. The entire family packed up their belongings and caught a bus from Matamoras bound for a small-town north of Houston, Texas. As he looks out the window, he wonders about this completely different world he has stepped into. At one gas-station stop on the way up, he hears people, predominately speaking in English, a language he had heard people speaking from time to time, but had no idea what they were saying. After arriving at his aunt and uncle’s house, his family is greeted in Spanish giving him the first degree of comfort he has had since he crossed the border into Texas. The following day his non-English speaking mother takes him to a local school where she is met by a counselor who has to send for a translator to properly register her son for his first day at school. As he attempts to interpret his printed schedule, the boy makes his way to his classroom. He is met by a paraprofessional who introduces herself in English and then in Spanish as his monitoring teacher. She promises to help him get used to his new school and to transition him into the English language. This is an example of the experience that over 20,000 new immigrant children face every year in Texas schools alone, and that number is doubling as

Growing up as a second-generation child provides an interesting linguistic experience. As one myself, I have always been curious about the concept of bilingualism in children. Living between two cultures provides an environment that is different when compared to another person who was only exposed to one while they were young. However, everyone experiences this type of upbringing differently, for example I am not fluent in the minority language spoken in my house, Urdu. Despite having grown up surrounded by this heritage language through interactions with my parents, I am only fluent in English and can barely speak rudimentary Urdu. Interactions with other second-generation kids have made me aware that this is not a situation exclusive to

Bilingual children, having the struggle of learning two languages is a challenge, since they need to always focus on the main one that is being use. For that say, the children are individually being left out of learning their own family language, because they don’t use it often. Or they were not being taught. Rodrigues from “Aria: A memoir of Bilingual Childhood” argues that: “Today, I hear bilingual educators say that children lose a degree of ‘Individuality by becoming assimilated into public society… The biligualists insist that a student should be reminded of his difference from others in mass society, his heritage.”

Did you know that a large percentage of Spanish speaking parents in the United State do not teach their children or supply them with resources to better or maintain their Spanish language? Due to such high percentage of children not speaking, writing, or reading Spanish, is declining tremendously. Therefore, Bilingualism plays a big role among the Hispanic societies and provides our future generation with better employment opportunity, but due to parents lacks of involvement, the percentage of Spanish speaking youth are just getting lowers each year. In addition, a lot more people are speaking Spanish in the United States, but you did not know that in the future more of those Spanish speakers would not be Hispanic. Therefore, parents should not assume school will be a source for their youth’s bilingual education and must teach them themselves.

Growing up as a successive/sequential bilingual, and my hands-on experience as an ESL teacher, bilingualism has been always in my area of interest. After coming to the USA in October 2015, I had the chance to work with BAWDI (Bangladesh American Women Development Initiative), a Paterson-based organization where I met bilinguals of different age groups coming from the diverse socio-economic background. The variation in their L1 and L2 language proficiency made me more interested in this area. My interactions with them helped me to gather some fascinating data about bilingual phenomenon i.e. attitudes of parents towards bilingualism, what factors contribute to subtractive and additive bilingualism, how age affects language variation and so

Bilingual education to most is just taking a Spanish, German, or French class, but it’s much more than that. Bilingual education involves teaching two languages at once, one being a native, and the other being a secondary language. With varying amounts of both languages being taught they should be used in accordance to help with the learning process (Bilingual Education). Bilingual education programs allow students to maintain their own cultures, while identifying the cultures, languages, heritages, and identities of others (Robinson). Bilingual education in youth is notable because of its positive effects on the brain, the long term benefits of being bilingual, and for a more general understanding of the fast growing Spanish culture in the

From a young age I could remember my grandmother scolding my mother for not teaching me to speak Spanish fluently. I always questioned the importance of being bilingual, like how would this every help me in a world where English is becoming the native tongue. Before I stumbled across the research done on bilingualism I had very little to none background knowledge on bilingualism. I thought the only outcome of being bilingual or multilingual is you get to socialize with other people from other backgrounds and maybe have more opportunities to a more variety of jobs. Needs less to say I greatly underestimated the importance bilingualism has on the mind, in school and in life itself. After reading tremendous amount of research, I have a better insight, on how bilingualism can change one’s life and more importantly the change it has on the structure of the mind. I have discovered how the mind of someone who is bilingual works, also the impacts bilingualism has on the mind and most importantly how bilingualism can essentially pave a way to success in education and learning.

For this investigative assignment, I interviewed three of my closest friends about their perspectives on bilingual education in the United States. One of my friends, who I will call “A,” said that bilingual education is important for students because it helps them broaden their perspectives on the world. Students are exposed to learn different cultures and respect them, promoting multiculturalism in our country. “A” said that if students were only exposed to English-only classroom setting, they would most likely be ignorant of other cultures. She also told me about her experience when she was in an ESL program during her middle school year. She described the program as useless because she and her classmates learned broken English from each other. She somehow managed to get out of the program and put herself into the mainstream English class. My other friend, who I will call “B,” stated that bilingual education is helpful in developing a wider cultural perspective and cultivating a person suitable for the globalized world. As a foreign-born American and working as an international student coordinator, she emphasizes the importance of acknowledging and respecting different cultures. She believes that bilingual education can help students to achieve better knowledge on growing multiculturalism in our country. My last interviewee, who I will call “C,” also believes that bilingual education is important to cultivate young minds by helping them to respect not only their own but

What does it mean to be bilingual? Does it simply pertain to the language you use to share thoughts, beliefs, and ideas with others? To many, it may seem that’s all there is to bilingualism, rather than the deeper personal meaning it posesses. Language and communication are key components of identity because they represent an individual. The way I see it, bilingualism can create beautiful and heartwarming connections and that’s shown through a person’s identity. However, there are different sides when it comes to bilingualism, for example, Martin Espada and Richard Rodriguez are two essayists who explore the benefits and hardships of bilingualism in their works, while expressing what it means to them.