Con Respeto I Am Not Richard Rodriguez Summary

Where is my family from? I want to go home!” a young student thought with tears in her eyes. She stayed quiet because she could not translate her thoughts into English. In retrospect, Norma Mota-Altman believes being part of an English-only classroom in America when she was a child hurt her, and she now realizes the importance of bilingual education (4). Altman reveals this perspective in her editorial, “Con Respeto, I Am Not Richard Rodriguez.” In the debate over whether to include students’ private lives and cultures in the U.S. education system, Altman’s outlook contrasts with Richard Rodriguez’, an essayist and opponent of multilingual classrooms. Victor Villanueva, Jr., a bilingual academic, also has a perspective differing from Rodriguez’

Altman could succeed in school by accommodating public expectations while preserving her heritage (4). By learning to navigate public and private spaces, one may achieve socially or academically by fulfilling public expectations. Simultaneously, one may lose communication abilities essential to connecting with those in one’s private life. Villanueva acknowledges that Rodriguez lost intimacy with his family to participate in public settings, although Villanueva felt connected to his private life by maintaining an accent while learning English (19). Altman and others exhibit that experiences with navigating public and private domains can vary, as can their consequences. Altman believes English-only policies are unneeded. People’s cultural backgrounds can provide them with an advantage in learning and communicating with others, even in the public sphere. Conversely, Rodriguez explains assimilation is vital as it enables people to achieve public

Altman reveals that one should be free to use one’s language in public and nonpublic domains. Her experience highlights that education systems have broad control over expectations for language and whether some languages belong in public environments. It also demonstrates that people have varying ways of negotiating between language and culture, such as by speaking separate public and private languages while deciding whether to conform to a language or culture. Assimilation may affect how one associates languages with public and private spheres. A variety of experiences and consequences can occur when one finds success with presence in public and closed spaces, such as becoming better equipped to attain educational success or losing connection with one’s private life. Altman underlines that assimilation is unnecessary as heritage can provide funds of knowledge for the benefit of one’s education, and systems promoting assimilation can alienate and inflict harm upon