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The Language In Hunger Of Memory By Richard Rodriguez

763 Words4 Pages

I would love to learn Mien, the main language my family uses to communicate at family gatherings. Although I’m eager to learn now, my grandparents gave up teaching my siblings and I Mien. The difficulty of teaching three small children who already knew English took a toll on my already exhausted grandparents. Now at family gatherings, similar to Rodriguez and his teachers, when my grandparents ask me questions, I stare at them, blankly. Eventually, they give up and repeat what they previously said into broken English. Like Rodriguez and English, I felt at a disadvantage not knowing Mien. Rodriguez, the author of Hunger of Memory, believes that juggling two languages results in the loss of the culture of one, so everyone should speak English. …show more content…

Being a Puerto Rican from Brooklyn, Espada failed to learn Spanish first. Through embracing his identity and fighting for the right to speak Spanish, Espada breaks down the barriers xenophobic people put up. During a protest, Espada meets a hot-headed man threatening him for speaking Spanish. Later, with a microphone, Espada snaps back, “He can rip my tongue out if he wants. But it won’t work, porque yo hablo español con el corazón” (97-99). Espada expresses his passion for Spanish from his metaphorical sacrifice of his tongue to continue speaking Spanish. He claims Spanish as his identity when he mentions that he speaks Spanish with the heart. I feel similar emotions that Espada feels when I hear Mien. Even if I can’t produce Mien, hearing my grandparents produce my language, and trying to piece together what they’re saying warms my heart. From fighting the right to speak for the accessibility of his language, Espada embraces his …show more content…

Spanish at home had been his safe place until he left his comfort zone and went to school. Rodriguez’s difficulties of not knowing English pulled him away from society, unable to answer nun’s speaking to him at school. “Each time I’d hear them, I’d look up in surprise to see a nun’s face frowning at me. I’d mumble, not really meaning to answer” (31-33). Rodriguez not meaning to answer resurfaces the discouragement he felt from the nun’s frown. Seven years of Spanish resulted in a socially disadvantaged young child, unable to answer nuns or connect with his classmates. After his parents strengthened their English, Rodriguez lost his safe place and the necessity of communicating through Spanish. “Rare was the experience of feeling myself individualized by my family intimates” (125-127). Spanish was a part of Rodriguez for a portion of his life. Losing a part of him came with guilt, but even with that guilt, he remembers the discouragement of knowing Spanish in school and how that got him nowhere. Rodriguez finds that speaking English makes communicating painless, especially after watching his parents learn English to use in their daily

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The best part of my paper is the second body paragraph. I believe that it entails a detailed description of Rodriguez’s journey of transitioning from Spanish to English. I also highlight the point where Rodriguez finally built the courage to speak in his English boldly and confidently, something he struggled with throughout his entire child hood. I thoroughly enjoyed the story of Rodriguez and how he developed how he transitioned to a little boy to a confident young man. I specifically liked the quote that I chose that explained that although the Rodriguez family changed.

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760 Words | 4 Pages

“By 2050, the united states will be home to the most spanish speakers in the world, even so there are many latinx who are either not fluent or don't speak spanish at all,” then follows with a statistic, “The grandchildren of immigrants are likely to speak only english by the third generation only 17% of hispanics speak spanish fluently and by the fourth generation it drops to 5%. She begins with logos, second hand quantitative evidence ensuring she captures the reader's attention in relation to her main argument. She then transitions to pathos, the appeal to emotion including an examples of a Puerto Rican woman named Andria Morales who says “not speaking spanish has made me ineligible for opportunities,” which creates judgment against her leading to insecurity when trying to incorporate the Spanish language. Of course using the appeal to ethos is also an effective strategy to prove your point. Background information is given about Tracy Lopez to establish a relationship between her readers and reliability, Lopez appeared in various publications in cuding Ser padres magazine cafe magazine andplaza familia.

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102 Words | 1 Pages

Gloria Anzaldúa, in the essay “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” (1987), claims her experiences as a Chicano taught her that her culture was not looked at highly in comparison to the English language. Anzaldúa argues her view about her Chicano language by giving examples of both cultures Chicano Mexican and American cultures. Anzaldúa’s purpose is to inform her audience on how it is to grow up in a Chicano speaking family. Anzaldúa writes in a frustrating tone throughout the story of her life experiences. Thesis: Anzaldúa use of her personal experiences, and Music, Film and Literature are relevant sufficient and

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557 Words | 3 Pages

How is this purpose conveyed? The audience for this piece are people who are interested in Rodriguez’s childhood and education and seeing how scholarship children can become successful. The writer’s purpose is to explain why and how he became a scholarship and academically successful in a bilingual household with the family’s main focus on Spanish. This purpose is shown as the writer takes the reader on a journey through his childhood.

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1037 Words | 5 Pages

“So many words were still unknown that when the butcher and the lady at the drugstore said something to me, exotic polysyllabic sounds would bloom in the midst of their sentences. Often, the speech of people in public seemed to be very loud, booming with confidence. The man behind the counter would literally ask, ‘What can I do for you?’ But by being firm and so clear, the sound of his voice said that he was a gringo; he belonged in the public society”(12). Rodriguez describes the way English sounds to him creating an image that the language was very complex to in his perspective.

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1427 Words | 6 Pages

Castro appeals to a younger audience in many ways, pleading for a call to action in continuing to teach Spanish to the 2nd and 3rd generation Hispanics. He knows that these are the people who he needs to reach with his words. The kids and young adults who should take pride in their culture, but maybe aren’t because their heritage through their native language wasn’t passed down to them. These are the people with the power to revitalize the Spanish speaking natives in America’s

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942 Words | 4 Pages

Anzaldua writes about her Spanish and how it is to others. She explains the major things to her, but breaks it down piece by piece. Some will understand how she tries to explain herself, but it all depends on the person. She describes that her Spanish is different compared to the other Hispanic races. Anzaldua states, “Chicano Spanish is a border tongue which developed naturally” (35).

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1133 Words | 5 Pages

At the end of his excerpt, he speaks on the loss of family dynamic, he never “rushed home after school anymore.” Spanish was the main principal in his family, and after being forced to brush off the Spanish language, his family was troubled. Rodriguez wants his readers to know that the issue wasn’t the setbacks in learning English but the setbacks in his loving family. This is an important aspect of bilingualism for American society to understand because no brave soul decided they wanted to speak on it. Me, I can because I haven’t had to endure such pain.

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721 Words | 3 Pages

Espada shares his enthusiasm towards fighting for Spanish, “Defending the right of all Latinos to [speak Spanish]... creates in me a passion towards Spanish itself,” (18-20). Alike Espada, I believe that language is a right, and speakers of non-English languages should have the freedom to speak in a comfortable environment. I also believe that such tolerance is a stride towards making America a better, more united place. Rodriguez suffers from the lack of accommodation for him to maintain his native language while also learning English. After the public language seeps into his own home, Rodriguez tells of how he was affected.

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187 Words | 1 Pages

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.

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601 Words | 3 Pages

He shows this through his many experiences with bilingual court and education. At the end of his essay, Espada concludes with a basic summary of what he has learned. Espada claims “The repression of Spanish is part of a larger attempt to silence Latinos, and, like the crazy uncle at the family dinner table yelling about independence or socialism, we must refuse to be silenced.” Through the summary the reader understands despite English being the prevalent language the in the U.S. today the Spanish culture is still being preserved through bilingualism. On the other hand Rodriguez argues that in order to gain a public identity, one must be willing to sacrifice some part of their own cultural identity.

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818 Words | 4 Pages

I find two insights very interesting in Rodriguez’s essay. Firstly, in the midst of preparing dinner, Rodriguez stated that, his mother come up and ask him to tell her some about the book that he is reading [21.] I find this interesting because the act of the author’s mother can be cited as a support. Even though his mother have a lack of education, by trying to explain and tell his mother about the book that he his reading, Rodriguez will have more understandings of the book. But the acts of Rodriguez’s mother do not seem as support for the author, because he barely answers to his mother’s question.

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476 Words | 2 Pages

Francisco can only speak Spanish and every person at his school can only speak English. “‘I got headaches every time I hear Mrs. Scalapino. ’”(Pg. 2)

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1045 Words | 5 Pages

Cofer addresses the cultural barriers and challenges that Latinos experience through emotional appeal, anecdotal imagery, parallelism and the use of effective periodic sentences. In her article, Cofer assesses the difficult cultural hurdles of Latin Americans with emotional appeal. She provides insight on her cultural barriers by first conveying the way she had to dress and her struggle, as it shows in this piece of text, “That morning I had organized… which to base my decision” (Cofer 5). This poignancy works to stress an agonizing feeling of uncertainty and restraint towards the author.

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813 Words | 4 Pages

On the other hand, in Richard Rodriguez “ Public and Private Language”, he talks about how people who are out in public they tend to speak in English and when they are at home they will speak in a language that makes them more comfortable. Both authors struggle in English but in different ways. Tan’s mother has hard time speaking English since it was not her first language.

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