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In Nikki Giovanni's poem, “Walking Down Park” Giovanni talks about things that used to be on the land of New York that is no longer there as well as, things that could have been there but didn’t have the chance. Giovanni begins the poem by saying “walking down park / amsterdam / or columbus,” these three names are streets located in New York, which is how the reader learns about the setting of this poem. Giovanni then asks “do you ever stop / to think what it looked like / before it was an avenue.” This is the first instance where Giovanni reflects on what things used to be like before New York became a large city. While Giovanni doesn’t dig deep into this first thought of the past, she makes it apparent that things have changed.
If the empowered and the powerless come together, then change is almost inevitable. President Johnson and Dr. King achieved their goal by each using their collective power and influence over their followers in order to spread their message, eventually calling the masses into action in their support. President Johnson pushed for legal change more, which was well paired with Dr. King, who was turning heads and altering mindsets as well as opinions. Dr. King was in support of LBJ and this may have been enough for some of his followers to be convinced he was really a presidential candidate they could trust, but for those who needed more evidence, Dr. King’s words were more than sufficient. Together, Dr. King and President Johnson were able to bring
In “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood,” Richard Rodriguez outlines the struggles he encountered growing up speaking Spanish in an English speaking society. He describes some of the hardships and difficulties he was forced to endure in assimilating into an English speaking American culture. In his essay, Rodriguez describes the importance of language and the influence it had on his early life. Through the use of vivid imagery and psychological appeals, Rodriguez is able to compare his native Spanish language to the foreign English language that surrounds him.
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.
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.”
In Rhina Espaillat’s poem, “Bilingual/Bilingüe”, she has described her cultural situation as rough. Espaillat discusses how her father did not allow for her daughter to speak both languages, English and Spanish, together in the house. The father demanded her to only speak Spanish inside the house and English outside only because he is afraid that the language will tear their relationship apart. However, since Espaillat considered herself stubborn, she didn’t want the separation of languages, she taught herself English. Being raised in a household with a different language than what the dominant language is outside of the household is difficult for some individuals, however, mixing cultural differences and languages into one is wonderful.
In the reading “To Live In Spanish: An Immigrant Commentary” by Trinidad Villegas, the subject of inequities in language is discussed. She explains her own account of dealing with intersecting identities. When immigrating to the U.S. she spoke only Spanish. This became a problem.
The Alchemist Santiago has many mentors along the way during his journey. He had the alchemist, the crystal merchant, and his own sheep. The alchemist helped Santiago turn himself into the wind. Turning Santiago into the wind saved his life, he was being held captive and when he turned into the wind he was able to escape from the people holding him captive.
The road to Civil Rights was drastically changed by that of a six year old girl. A six year old girl who did what most adults would not do, she walked into an all white elementary school. At a time where segregation was still an issue and faced the hatred that white people had towards African Americans. The image of Ruby Bridges being escorted into school by federal marshals is one of the most powerful iconic images in the world today and one of the most powerful images captured during the Civil Rights Movement.
The essay which presents a better model of bilingual learning and integration is “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, but both present experiences that should and shouldn’t be involved in one’s language and cultural assimilation into today’s society. In “Aria”, the author makes his stance clear by sharing experiences, opinions, and reflecting upon his journey to the English language. Richard Rodriguez recalls, “Because I wrongly imagined that English was intrinsically a public language and Spanish an intrinsically private one, I easily noted the difference between classroom language and the language of home,” (Rodriguez, 466). He felt intimacy from Spanish with his family, as it was their private language that others around them couldn’t understand and they couldn’t understand English; their isolation from language barriers brought bring the family closer together.
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.
Before arriving, my spanish vocabulary was very small, but with each passing day I see it grow larger thanks to the help of CEDRO.
Learning Spanish before English made pronunciation and spelling difficult for me due to the different rules of grammar. It was not until the fifth grade that I became interested in reading.
Spanish was my first language and neither one of my parents knew english. I would go to school and just listen and try to learn every little thing I could get my hands
It has been proven that it is much easier to learn a language when you are younger, but practice makes perfect. In order to do well in the class, I had to study frequently to help understand and remember words, which is normal. I think learning Spanish helped me understand the culture. In class, we learned about holidays they celebrated, such as, Cinco De Mayo and the Day of the Dead. This helped me understand what they valued.
