In the essay “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” by Richard Rodriguez. The author uses his memoir to show how he has fought through his childhood to understand English and how the english language had formed his identity. To him, Spanish was a private language, spoken only at home and in the comforting presence of his family. The Spanish language allowed him to connect with his parents because that was all they knew. However, After he was somewhat forced to speak English by the public, he became an outsider to his own culture, unable to speak Spanish, but still able to understand it as it states “we remained a loving family, but one greatly changed.
Tan was raised in the English society and was already assimilated into society as she grew up. The language Tan was familiar with like Rodriguez was familiar to Spanish was her mother’s language, which she refers to as her “mother tongue” (Tan, 313). Tan writes about her experiences of her mother’s language as a child, and says, “…when I was growing up, my mother’s ‘limited’ English limited my perception of her. I was ashamed of her English” (314).
In Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood, Richard Rodriguez makes the claim that “[i]t is not possible for a child—any child—ever to use his family’s language in school. Not to understand this is to misunderstand the public uses of schooling and to trivialize the nature of intimate life – a family’s ‘language.’” Rodriguez enforces this idea through extensive use of vignettes as well as the structure of his essay, recalling his childhood and his reluctance to learn public language. Going into depth, he explains how his fear of the public society—rather his belief that he could not be a part of it—caused the young author to be weary of leaving his intimate family setting.
Most individuals are apprehensive about changes, but there may be no reason. Changes can bring benefits to those who experience them. In the essay “Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” Richard Rodriguez explores his life as a bilingual child. He discusses the many changes he experiences as he goes from being fluent in Spanish to being fluent in English. Rodriguez dissuades the reader against bilingual education which is the education of nonnative English speakers in their native language.
Through his well written essay, Rodriguez clearly, and efficiently conveys his emotions and thoughts about the american culture, and english language, how they both impacted his life not only positively but negatively. He feels that the negative impacts overshadow the positive in regard to the way the situation at home changed drastically. Nonetheless Rodriguez’s appliance of rhetorical devices give an insight of the struggles and obstacles that many bilingual children go through, how their lives change and are never the same, after assimilating a new and different culture then, the one they are so accustomed to. This essay gives readers the possibility understand the message and emotions emitted by Rodriguez, to their own, and more strongly have a grasp of the concept and meaning of the essay. The result of analysing “Aria” leads to realization that the learning of two languages may better the future of a child, and that it will benefit the child academically and socially, when in reality the aftermath of having to adopt an entire new culture, and living by it will affect the child's emotional
In the essay, "Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood", Richard Rodriguez explains his opinion on bilingual education based on his own childhood experience. He provides reasons why it would be retrogressive to permit the non-English speaking children use their family language as the language in school. In defending his positions, he provides three ideas to support his position: • The use of family language impedes child’s social growth. Insistence on using Spanish language at home made Rodriguez and his older sister and brother to be socially disadvantaged at school.
Being bilingual can be both useful or irritating, having the ability to communicate and understand several languages or being raised to be an interpreter for your parents. As you become more exposed to a variety of languages you can often observe how society treats certain languages. Martin Espada is a lawyer and poet who defends Spanish speakers in America, makes it clear about the role of language in his essay, “The New Bathroom Policy at English High School.” He asserts that the importance of language is created from cultural identity. When Espada shared what he learned about maintaining and defending Spanish he proceeded to say, “Defending the right of all Latinos to use the tongue of their history and identity creates in me passion for Spanish itself.”
Rodriguez’s English was not the best, and because of that he would either be silent or quietly mumble when asked to participate by one of the nuns (73). Since his lack of participation was noticeable and showed little progress, some of his teachers visited Rodriguez’s home to ask his parents to “encourage your children to practice their English when they are home?” (73). Rodriguez one day walks in on his parents speaking Spanish, but when they see him they switch to English, which offends and over the days that follows angers him enough to decide to seriously learn English. Rodriguez even willingly decides to participate in class (74).
The basis of his argument throughout the essay is that bilingual education keeps students from being exposed to the English language enough to begin growing comfortable with it. However, in this particular passage, Rodriguez claims that he felt more afraid being forced to adapt to the English language at school. He states that “it would have pleased [him] to hear [his] teachers address [him] in Spanish when [he] entered the classroom.” By being greeted in a manner that he is more familiar with, he believes he would have been more open to the people teaching him, and with time more open to the English language. His claim within this passage contradicts his original position that separating students in bilingual classrooms is a disservice to
I really enjoyed "Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood" by Richard Rodriguez because it gave me a perspective on bilingual children and education I've never heard before. Rodriguez, the son of two Mexican immigrants, grew up in Sacramento, California and began attending an English-speaking school knowing very little English. The essay takes readers through both the struggles and delights he experienced while learning the English language. Despite the struggles he went through, Rodriguez firmly believes that bilingual education is bad for children. Although I’ve always thought that bilingual education was good, Rodriguez made a very convincing argument about why it is wrong; and changed my mind.
The term bilingualism is defined as a fluency in or use of two languages, but other people think of it as much more than just fluency. Martin Esapada thinks of it as belonging to two cultures and how that was difficult for him growing up and how he wants more inclusivity. Richard Rodriguez believes that it is not all that deep and that being pushed to learn English helped him. Chang Rae Lee saw bilingualism from his point of view and his moms and watched how she dealt with it and formed his own opinion. "The New Bathroom Policy at English High School" by Martin Espada really delves into the challenges faced by bilingual individuals.
Richard Rodriguez apprises his experience as a bilingual child by writing a book called, The Hunger of Memory. He experiences the feeling of alienation and non acceptance because his native language isn’t English. As a bilingual, Richard is socially disadvantage. His world is separated by two distinct sounds, English and Spanish. English represent the public society while Spanish represent his private world, which is his home.
The parent’s perspective towards bilingual education was like the student’s opinions because both individuals felt immersion classrooms benefit the students and the parents. The father of Jason was proud his son was the first in his family to read, write, and speak in English. Jason’s father knew his son would have many career opportunities by learning English at school. Learning the English academic language was not the only proud language Jason’s father encouraged for Jason to learn but also the Spanish language as well. Jason’s father only speaks Spanish so if his son was to lose his home language, a language barrier would form between father and son.
He later found the different between the two languages. For example, classroom language is the same as public language while home language is the same as private language. Rodriguez felt more comfortable in speaking Spanish, his private language, than English. Therefore causing him to not really participate or speak in class. Out of the blue, his teacher came to visit his family asking “ to encourage your children to practice their English when they are home.
In this essay he shows his readers a part of life that many have never experienced. He is a good example of how not showing up for bilingual education courses can help students develop a successful English. Richard claims that he was finally able to raise his hand in class and talk, after learning English on a more elaborate basis. Rodrigues’s teachers influenced his parents to start talking on English at home to help speed up the learning process for him. Each day he stayed after school for English tutoring.
