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Summary Of A Memoir Of A Bilingual Childhood By Richard Rodriguez

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Richard Rodriguez wrote, Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood, in his essay he wrote about the problem he faced growing up as a bilingual Hispanic in America. Growing up as a Hispanic in United States was a struggle for Richard Rodriguez. This was because he was a Spanish speaking child and living in an English-speaking society. Rodriguez went to Roman Catholic school where many of his classmates were the children of business man, lawyers and doctors. Adjusting to the American culture helped Rodriguez feel more comfort among the other American students. He spoke English at home but when he got home he started speaking Spanish as a daily routine. Sometimes Rodriguez heard his parents speaking English in public but he felt safe in his Spanish speaking home because it was his first language. English seemed difficult for …show more content…

His parents mainly spoke Spanish, and he spoke English. He wanted about his parents to adopt the American culture. He felt that it is necessary to be integrated to the culture that you live in. This is because, Rodriguez had a hard time in his life remain with his own culture. Rodriguez felt that integration is necessary and due to this belief, he lost his family. Now he has rare contact with his family, because he attached to a society which is different than his parent’s culture. Many Americans feel that they have a best culture and that anyone who lives in States, should follow their culture with their beliefs, traditions and language. Rodriguez stands solid on his opinion of attachment of cultures as he wrote it in his essay. This has its own advantages and disadvantages. Advantage of integration would be that it is quite a bit easier to live in a society if beliefs and traditions are the same. but a major disadvantage is that you can lose your previous culture and customs. Rodriguez established well about his point of view in his

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According to “‘Blaxicans’ and other Reinvented Americans,” Richard Rodriguez argues throughout his essay, that culture should be what defines a person’s identity, as opposed to race. Rodriguez portrays his mentality on these aspects when it is implied that an individual is able to assimilate to another culture (214-216). Therefore this reveals Rodriguez’s beliefs. Rodriguez demonstrates that although a person may have been born with a specific race, that does not define them. Rodriguez, an American, transferred to a Chinese culture and says that this makes him Chinese.

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Growing up Mexican-American in the United States can be a challenge itself. Throw in the task, of learning two languages, it made for a very confused little girl. There was often times growing up when I wondered why no one, but my family spoke Spanish. Why everyone at school and all my friends spoke this different language. Sometimes it even seemed like I was two different people.

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Richard Rodriguez essay “Blaxicans and Other Reinvented Americans” reveals Rodriguez’s attitudes towards race and ethnicity as they relate to personal identity. An evidence to support Richard Rodriguez’s claim in this section is when he says “ I am chinese, and that is because I live in a chinese city and because i want to be chinese”. (163-165) This evidence reveals, rodriguez point that ethnicity has nothing to do with race . He says that a person can choose their ethnicity based on the way they want to act and on things they want to be value. Rodriguez got used to the differences and actually started to like them.

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“Chicano Spanish is a border tongue which developed naturally. Being Chicana, herself, and growing up in Texas, Anzaldua was forced to learn English. Because their heritage and the language is a mixture of many, Chicanos are susceptible to judgement by people of other ethnicities and other Chicanos. In order to fit in with the rest of the school population, chicano students were forced to take speech classes to rid them of their accents.(26) Without speaking Spanish, some people viewed them as less Chicano, like they were not being true to themselves. The dilemma Anzaldua was faced with was that she was being made the other by two competing groups.

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He described Spanish, Espańol, as safe and endearing, while he described English as loud and impersonal. His teachers recognized his struggle with English and asked his parents to only speak it at home to help him learn. In time he became fluent in English at the cost of his Spanish, which his extended family loved to scold him for. As Rodriguez became more advanced in English he became more self-conscience about how poor his parents were at it.

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(“Jacques”). There was no bilingual education or multiculturalism, so Alvarez had to master it by herself (“Jacques”). Alvarez left behind a feeling of comfort and pushed herself to learn English which led to her success in

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Rodriguez would speak English in school because to him it was a “public language”, while Spanish was a “private language” (72). Rodriguez

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By doing this he is able to provide evidence to his claim, through showing how his home language (Spanish) was a part of only his home life, and not in school. Richard Rodriguez is able to successfully use rhetoric to further his claim of a child being unable to use his home language in school, through the use of amplification, providing an overall increased effectiveness in the power of his words. Richard Rodriguez’s essay, “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood," highlights the differences between public and private language use. Within his writing, Rodriguez claims, “[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 trivialize the nature

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Roberto was invited to play baseball. He was Once Roberto began to play baseball in the US, he encountered several difficulties he hadn’t even thought about. One was language. Roberto spoke mostly Spanish and a little English, but he had an accent that was hard to understand. Newspaper reporters made fun of how he talked.

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In the introduction to Days of Obligation by Richard Rodriguez, Rodriguez encaptures the differences of societies within the nation of Mexico and state of California, both of which he is familiar with. Rodriguez informs the readers through different stylistic devices on the tragic society that is Mexico and comedy of California.  Its is targeted to general audience as he simply contemplates the differences between comedy and tragedy which he talks about as if to an outsider looking in. All in all, Richard Rodriguez attempts to convey the wisdom of both comedic and tragic societies and just how different they are. Rodriguez throughout out the introduction states differences in culture and identity within the two different societies.

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The book A Hunger of Memory explores the education of Richard Rodriguez and his struggle to grow up in an American society that treats Mexican Americans differently. Rodriguez goes into depth about how bilingual education impacted him and his family’s lifestyle while going into great length to describe how language has impacted his life. As a bilingual American he struggles to balance his private language (That which is spoken with his family) and his public language. Although Rodriguez did learn English, he was against a bilingual education because it furthered him from the community he was immersed in and his family. As a result, Rodriguez confronts the fact that he is a product of alienation, which he sees with both acceptance and regret.

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Although Quiñonez is Ecuadorian and Puerto Rican that does not mean that the Chicano movement could not have influenced him. Quiñonez lived in New York, which is a melting pot of ethnicities and could have very well been influenced by Mexican-Americans around him who talked about how they were working towards the goal of being ‘equal’ in the eyes of the majority. During the 1960s many the Mexican population had started to take pride in their heritage and culture and “the term ‘Chicano’ gained widespread currency as many younger Mexican American civil rights activists call themselves Chicanos. The Chicano movement embodies both a celebration of Mexican American art and culture as well as the fight for Mexican American civil rights” (“Invisible No More: The Latino Struggle for Civil Rights” 4). When Quiñonez was born at the end of the Chicano movement which is when he saw the majority of Hispanics were empowering each other for being themselves and embracing their culture which caused him to be proud to be who he is.

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English and Spanish, the two dogs in this analogy, are the two cultures he nurtures and adores. Despite one culture being more dominant over the other, they are still two different parts of his identity that he must take care of. Compared to Espada’s essay, Rodriguez seems to approach the definition of bilingualism from a completely different perspective. Rodriguez sees bilingualism as a connection to one’s public identity. He mentions his definition near the beginning of his essay, where Rodriguez talks about how his previous non-bilingual self would have been pleased if the teachers had spoken Spanish.

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Being a Cuban immigrant has provided me with a unique bicultural perspective that has become my support system in the United States. For the first eleven years of my life, my culture was composed of music and dancing. In every street corner of my hometown, there was a group of seniors playing domino and close by, their grandchildren dancing to the Salsa music being played on the radio to pass the time. The hardships created by the communist regime are overshadowed by memories of my mother teaching me how to sew and by my paternal grandmother teaching me how to enjoy a strong Cuban coffee. Those precious memories of home became a source of pain when I migrated to the United States.

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His narrative shows this support and how having instruction in Spanish and English allows him to have higher academics. In less than ten years, one third of students attending public schools will not know English when starting Kindergarten. Are schools and teachers ready for this and will push for bilingual instruction? Is America ready for this? As for now, there is mixed perspectives.

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