Summary Of A Bilingual Child By Richard Rodriguez

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

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.

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.

“My English” is an extract from a book by the same name, written by Julia Alvarez; a writer born in United States, who spent most of her childhood in the Dominican Republic. In this extract, she explains her experience of being a bilingual individual, trying to harness both her mother tongue of Spanish and her “biological” mother tongue of English.

Rodriguez’s parents emphasize a large separation of their Mexican heritage from that of “los gringos.” The family speaks Spanish to each other, and the transition to speaking English symbolizes that person being spoken to is an outsider, not one to be trusted, an “Americano.” The language of Spanish, therefore, is a symbol of trust, acceptance, as being part of the family. When “Ricardo” gives up Spanish for English, although he is urged to do so by his parents, he feels he is betraying his family for “los gringos.”

First, Rodriguez develops ethos in the area of authority, which is the author’s ability to demonstrate a command over a subject matter and to offer an informed persona. Although Rodriguez initially struggled with his adjustment into the American society and speaking English, he did not let that limit his capabilities of being a successful in the classroom. “Rodriguez’s article appeared in The American Scholar magazine at a critical time in the debate over bilingual education models” (Robinson 236). The American Scholar magazine

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.

The reader disagrees with Rodriguez’s idea that other languages besides the primary language of a society cannot be used in the classroom. Rodriguez says that “it is not possible

At school, a Spanish word would suddenly slide into my English like someone butting into line. . . . I would bow my head humiliated by the smiles and snickers of the American children around me. I grew insecure about Spanish. My native tongue was not quite as good as English, as if words like columpio were illegal immigrants trying to cross a border into another language. But Teacher's discerning grammar-and-vocabulary ears could tell and send them back. (24)

How does childhood language development affect opinions on language as adults? Notable changes can be identified between Espada and Rodriguez’s essays, one coming from a Hispanic man who was forced to learn English as a child, and the other from a latino who learned Spanish as his second language. Martín Espada wrote an essay focused on defending the rights of other languages and their cultures, focusing on Spanish, his second language. Richard Rodriguez wrote an essay telling his experience with having to learn English as a child, and how bilingualism can change a person. They both write about the pros and cons of learning a second language, but the reasons and specifications vary dramatically. Bilingualism, even just language in general,

Learning a foreign language is becoming more and more popular everywhere in our day and time, and Mexico is not the exception. Many Mexican students, young and old, are motivated to learn English for education, work, travel, or even just for the love of learning a new language. Alejandro Estrada is an English student from Guadalajara, Jalisco. His goal in learning English is to further his education, and thus his quality of life. In this essay, I will create explain Alejandro’s concerns with studying English, and what I can do to help him achieve his language goals.

Rodriguez and Espada both share their opinions on the public use of Spanish and their experiences with the transformation of becoming bilingual with Spanish and English. Espada’s second language of English, and Rodriguez’s second language of Spanish seem to determine what community they belong to as an American citizen to their identity as whole.

To survive in America’s cultural war, Latinos must realize that they have a right to their identity and must refuse to be silenced. Espada emphasize that the lingual discrimination faced by Spanish speakers in education and the judicial system is part of a larger scheme

, everything was completely different, things seemed weird. He was afraid of hearing people speaking a dissimilar language. All his family didn’t speak English at the time, it was very difficult for Richard’s family and for those people whom they were trying to speak with. he didn’t speak it well enough to make clear sounds because every time he was trying to say something in English, people would low their heads, so they could hear him well or had him repeat himself. Moreover, all he wanted was to keep the sound of Spanish., it made him feel like a happy kid. As the author of this autobiography “Hunger of Memory” Richard Rodriguez mentioned, Bilingual people wished to stick with their native language