The New Bathroom Policy At English High School By Martin Espada

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.” (18-19) Espada uses pathos to highlight that defending the voices of Latinos creates the history and identity of those individuals. Additionally, Perez-Bustillo talked about his experience when

Another example is Espadas encounter with a politician during a protest and decided to greet him in Spanish he reported, “He squinted with rage, then threatened to rip my tongue out for talking to him in Spanish. He shoved past me and disappeared into the streets.” (Lines 88-91) Espada uses pathos to show how Spanish speakers are being threatened by other languages, indicating that their language is not allowed in the