Analysis Of Rebuttal To Hunger Of Memory By Richard Rodriguez

Rebuttal to Hunger of Memory Richard Rodriguez came from a Hispanic family that had little to no knowledge of the English language. That required his entire family to speak English at home and for him and his siblings to endeavor daily tutoring sessions. He stated in his memoir that learning the public language of English would drain the intimacy out of his first language: “Once I learned the public language it would never again be easy for me to hear intimate family voices (240).” This outlook has shaped his entire life. This had caused Richard to feel alienated at home, and at school, and felt ripped apart from his mother tongue, causing him in his adulthood to detest bilingual educators. I disagree with him. In his memoir Rodriguez

Rodriguez was required to attend tutoring sessions everyday for a year. Though in his mind he was still very reluctant to learn the language. “They [his teachers] understood was that I needed to speak a public language. So their voices would search me out, asking me questions . . . But I couldn’t believe that the English language was mine to use. (In part I did not want to believe it.) I continued to mumble, I resisted the teacher’s demands . . . Silent, waiting for the bell to sound, I remained dazed, diffident, afraid . . . (239).” He rebelled against learning the language in fear of losing the familiarity and his identity, though eventually he gave in. “One day in school I raised my hand to volunteer an answer. I spoke in a loud voice . . . that day, I moved very far from a disadvantaged child I had only been days earlier. The belief, the calming reassurance that I belonged in the public, had at last taken ahold (240).” In this excerpt he exclaims that he had lost the intimacy of his mother tongue, of being forced to learn a language that he was completely against: “At last, seven years old, I came to believe what had been true since my birth: I was an American citizen (240).” In this realization he succumbs to the fact that in being an American citizen he would have to understand English: “Only when I was able to think of myself as an American . . . could I seek the rights and opportunities necessary for full public individuality