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Compare and contrast essay breakdown
Compare and contrast essay breakdown
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This book is about two children that grew up in New York City, and the Jewish faith but one a very fanatical Jew. The first character we meet is a boy named Reuven Malter he is 15 his mother died shortly after his birth he is apikorsim a Jew that does not live by the strictest parts of the faith. The other boy Daniel Saunders was very orthodox and hated apikorsim. These boys would never have thought that their relationship would blossom. These boys were scheduled to play against each other from their school baseball teams.
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.
The author of “Hispanic Pride vs. American Assimilation,” Stephanie Cox, presents and explains Hispanic immigrants’ hesitancy to learn English very effectively. She begins by telling a personal story about meeting a Hispanic woman who wanted her son to learn English but refused to learn it herself. Cox was confused as to why the mother would refuse to learn English, so she did some research and found three possible causes of this situation: a pride in Hispanic peoples’ native countries--most specifically, Mexican-Americans, a close proximity to their native country, and the lack of support from other Hispanic Americans to assimilate to American culture and ideals. Cox’s explanation of the Hispanic reasonings aids in further understanding their situations.
Hunger of Memory is a memoir of the educational experience of Richard Rodriguez and his journey as a first generation Mexican- American citizen. The book is compiled of a prologue, in which he states his reasons for writing, and six chapters with no specific chronological order. Richard Rodriguez grew up in a white, middle-class neighborhood and attended a Catholic school. He describes his early childhood as a war between his “public” and “private life”: a war between school and home. He struggled when he first started school, because English was his second language and he felt insecure about his shaky ability to communicate through it.
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).
This fact proves that an immigrant’s life in the U.S. will be arduous; the language barrier hinders their ability to find jobs and communicate with society, and the will be looked down upon for not taking the time to learn English, one of the most difficult languages in existence. The Wellton 26’s lack of communication between themselves and Americans hinders their ability to find help and
"Mother Tongue" was written by Amy Tan, who is famous for her writings of her experiences as a Chinese immigrant growing up in American culture. Her primary purpose is to inform the reader about the prejudices her mother faced because her mother could not speak perfect English. In her essay, Tan shares stories of her mother's broken English and how people took advantage of her mother. Tan's intended audience are those who are unaware of people like her mother whose limited English is taken advantage of in everyday life. The experiences Tan shares with the readers is an emotion inducing strategy which Tan uses throughout her writing and it is proved to be very effective.
The first claim showed the variations of the English language and the difficulties one could incur if one did not speak it well.” I was walking down the street and became conscious I was using the English I do with my mother. ”(Tan 622) The second claim also backed up the first claim by showing how hard it is to grow up as the child of an immigrant, whose first language was not English. The purpose of her claims was to educate and inform people on her observations and experiences.
My Rhetorical Analysis Language is a part one’s identity and culture, which allows one to communicate with those of the same group, although when spoken to someone of another group, it can cause a language barrier or miscommunication in many different ways. In Gloria Anzaldua’s article, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, which was taken from her book Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, she is trying to inform her readers that her language is what defines her. She began to mention how she was being criticized by both English and Spanish Speakers, although they both make up who she is as a person. Then, she gave convincing personal experiences about how it was to be a Chicana and their different types of languages. Moreover, despite the fact that her language was considered illegitimate, Anzaldua made it clear that she cannot get rid of it until the day she dies, or as she states (on page 26) “Wild tongues can’t be, they can only be cut out.”
Primarily, the idea behind bilingual education is that ““primary and secondary school students who do not speak English well or at all should be taught in some or all subjects in their native language while they learn English” (Skrentny 179). The law targeted limited English proficiency students and especially the Hispanic community who had the high rate of dropouts at schools. While Gann, Duignan, Moore and Pachon insist on the role of Hispanic movement in supporting bilingual education, Skrentny's analysis of bilingual education demonstrates that Hispanics claimed bilingual education as a civil right issue after the emergence of bilingual education. He does not deny the role of the Hispanics but does not put the merit of bilingual education on them. In fact, Skrentny explains that the strongest support for bilingual education came from organizations such as the National Education Organization which argued that forcing immigrant children to give up their mother tongue and native culture in order to assimilate might cause important damage on the self-esteem of the children.
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.
Class ESL 5 In the article, ”My English” by Julia Alvarez, the author wrote about her experience as she learn to speak English. Spanish was her mother tongue and struggled to speak English in the early phases. She thought that English was a form of Spanish, as there are different dialects in Spanish. Her parents spoke English when they didn’t want her and her siblings to know what was going on.
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
To be orphaned from my native language felt, and still feels, like a crucial decision” (Lin 6). Yiyun Lin is caught between letting go her native language and wishes she can speak both because they both identify her. She struggles on choosing one of them and having one of them as a memory or a dream. This not only becomes a struggle for her, but an eye open decision on solving the problem of how she can combine a private language into a public language. “English is my private language.
After reading Mother Tongue by Amy Tan, my perspective changed about the struggles for people who are not as good at English. All throughout this article Tan uses personal experience from her mom to show the readers the struggle while also using primary sources to back up her claim. All the evidence backs up her initial claim and as the reader your perspective changes after reading about how she personally was effected. The author 's main claim of Mother Tongue is to persuade people so respect people who struggle with English because she has serval personal connections, she has fact based proof, and she is an experienced writer on this topic and in general. All throughout the reading she uses many personal stories and personal experiences on how difficult it was for her mother to go through her everyday life.