In the article Always Living in Spanish, Marjorie Agosin tells us her purpose for writing in Spanish for all of her work. Her organization leads us through her childhood and why she wound up where she did. Chile was her home until she was on the run for being a Jew. She came to America and has been here ever since. Writing in Spanish is her way of reliving her childhood in Chile.
In “Se Habla Espanol,” Tanya Barrientos elaborates on her personal experience growing up in the United States. In the first couple decades of her life, Barrientos distanced herself from her cultural roots fearing that she would be judge and belittle. It was essential for Barrientos to fit in with the American society. Barrientos formats the short story where she is speaking from firsthand experience.
Richard Rodriguez’s “ Aira: A Memoir of Bilingual Childhood” and Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” both exercise the three common rhetoric devices – pathos, ethos, and logos – to appeal to the audience and to make their arguments within the text more valid and comprehensive. Both authors write about their experiences and struggles with immigration and the assimilation into the public identity and society, but their reactions to these situations are similar and different in several forms and aspects, including how they were presented to the public identity, how they reacted to the public identity and assimilation into the society by facing their challenges, what their family connection was, and what credibility they have. While both authors did resist
For as long as people can remember, the stereotype that men have “more power” than women in a relationship has been a relevant argument. In the novel How the García Girls Lost Their Accents the Author, Julia Alvarez, writes about four girls and part of that revolves around their relationships with men. In all of their relationships with men, he has the power in the relationship which means he makes the decisions for them. When they lived in the United States the girls and their mother had more say in the society. When they lived in the Dominican Republic men just saw them as submissive housewives who bear their children.
This quote explains that the author feels out of place. When Barrientos came to the United States she stopped speaking spanish, partly because her parents wanted her to speak english. One reason she did not want to be classified as Mexican American was that society has negative connotations outsiders. Learning spanish
While Barrientos and Marquez in the book, The Norton Sampler, both come from very similar cultures, they both have been raised to view their culture in different ways. In, Se Habla Espanol, Tanya Barrientos writes about how when she was younger she took pride in not knowing Spanish, but later wishes she knew the language. Myriam Marquez discusses in, Why and When We Speak Spanish in Public, that she takes pride in speaking Spanish because it is respectful to her culture. In this essay we will look into the ways in which Barrientos and Marquez differ in the ways they have been raised to view their culture.
At the end of the novel, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, Yolanda shares a story that is rather disconnected from all of the other stories. She shares a story of her finding a litter of cats in a barrel, and how she takes one of them only to throw them out of the window when she becomes annoyed with his meowing. Because of this, Yolanda becomes haunted with the kitten’s mother at night. The black cat that haunted Yolanda for so many years is a symbol to her past life, and the violence she created and endured. Yolanda first started seeing the mother cat after the incident when she threw the kitten out of the window.
Sex. A very risque topic that comes up thousands of times in everyone’s life, even though it’s uncomfortable. Kids learn at a young age what sex is in school through health, even if it scars kids for the rest of their life, seeing they haven’t fully matured. In Julia Alvarez’s book, “How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent”, she teaches the reader that sex is treated differently in different cultures. This book highlights the fact that in the United States sex is viewed as an activity for pleasure, where The Dominican Republic treats sex as something more sacred, and something you wait for.
Mericans written by Sandra Cisneros is a short story in which the internal struggles of being bilingual and bicultural are discussed and analyzed. Through the use imagery, point of view, symbolism, characterization, and character transformation the reader gleans the theme of the story. Furthermore, Sandra Cisneros addresses border identity, crossing the border, and knowing or not knowing that one’s home lies in two countries. The story uses narrative first person point of view and is told through the eyes of the protagonist Micaela. The successful execution of the entire story allows the reader to see the attitude changes from the main character throughout the story from beginning to end.
In mid-February of 1913, Brazil, Indiana James Riddle Hoffa was born. Growing up, he saw America’s labor class struggle in horrible conditions. At the young age of 7 his father died. His father worked in a local mine, he died in the mine from black lungs. His father literally worked to death.
Throughout generations cultural traditions have been passed down, alongside these traditions came language. The language of ancestors, which soon began to be molded by the tongue of newer generations, was inherited. Though language is an everlasting changing part of the world, it is a representation of one’s identity, not only in a cultural way but from an environmental standpoint as well. One’s identity is revealed through language from an environmental point of view because the world that one is surrounded with can cause them to have their own definitions of words, an accent, etc. With newer generations, comes newer forms of languages.
He supports this argument by telling his own story of being forced to learn English by the bilingual education system. The experience he had learning English made him experience great embarrassment, sadness, and change. Rodriguez concludes his experience by discussing how English had changed his personal life at home: “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.” By learning English, Rodriguez’s family is finally able to integrate into society without language barriers.
Living In Spanish Living in Spanish is an essay written by Marjorie Agosin. Agosin was born and raised in Chile but is of Russian and Australian Jewish descent. During her time in high school, she was forced to leave the place she had called home her whole life due to the government of Salvador Allende being overthrown by dictator Augusto Pinochet. In Living in Spanish Agosin expresses her love for her native tongue and tells the audience what it was like to have to live in translation. Agosin appeals to the reader's emotions in hopes to get the reader to understand the alienation in language and fear of confusion she lived.
In the Debate of speaking Spanish prompt the author Myriam Marquez explains that speaking Spanish in public places in America is not to make herself look un-American, but because she feels it’s a free country where anyone can speak any language they like. First, Spanish speakers shouldn’t be ashamed to speak their language because of what the public might think about them. Secondly, Speaking the Spanish language in public is not rude if it is spoken with family members who speak it as well. Lastly, if a non-Spanish speaker is with people who decide to speak Spanish and not English around them; then it is considered rude.
Isabel Allende’s, My Invented Country: A Nostalgic Journey Through Chile, is her memoir about her native country, yet also sheds light to other important societal roles in Chile. As she passionately writes about her experiences, Allende makes it evidently clear that she loves her homeland, regardless of what troubles the country encounters. Nonetheless, it should be noted that her memoir is solely based upon her memories, and incorporates a sense of fiction to better help tell her story through vivid descriptions of the natural landscape and/or the people she interacted with. Her book was compelling to me as her passion for her country was expressed through her usage of language and descriptive experiences that portrayed her emotions during
