Rodriguez

     

       Richard Rodriguez's work Aria: Memoir of a bilingual Childhood is very well written. Reading it I was challenged to really think about the claims he was making. The piece is about Rodriguez's childhood. Spanish was his first language, a language he associated with family, safety, and love. Even though Rodriguez was born in the united States he didn't feel he belonged. He was in the land of Los gringos. An especially beautiful part of the essay is when Rodriguez describes his fascination with sound. He heard sound before he heard words. The confidence of the gringos when they spoke english compared to struggle in his parents' voice when they attempted to speak the language. Home was his safe haven; especially during the first few months of school where he was the only non-white child in his class. To make things worse he could barely speak english. The nuns who pronounced his name Rich-heard showed no mercy an would actively engage with him during the class. Something he thanks them for in this essay. He makes his first assertion after recalling his jarring school experience. Rodriguez claims the argument for bilingual education, teaching kids in their first language, is not a good one. He believes it will hold them back. Rodriguez seems to be making his argument based on his own very personal experience. His position is very colored by his lens. To him the most important thing for a child who is not a native english speaker to understand is they are apart of our society. Something Rodriguez learned when he began to speak english fluently. He assumes that every bilingual child faces the same eternal struggle he did as a child, he errs when he assumes that all bilingual students do not consider themselves part of the united states. Something I believe needs to be true to make his argument work. I agree that not speaking the language of the land can cause one to feel isolated but Rodriguez suggests that there has to be some kind of trade. A child's private life for a creation of their public life. 

       He then goes on to talk about the end of his association between spanish and his private life. Once his siblings and himself became fluent english speakers the family was no longer as close. His father was in a way isolated from his increasingly assimilated family. He retreated in silence. This piece showcases the importance of language in culture. To Rodriguez proponents of bilingual language want two things that contradict. They want people to be able use their private home language in public. According to him, you can't have a public life in private. One page 345 he seems to be claiming that the legislation that allows ballots to be printed in different languages is flawed. He comments that those people have not yet assimilated yet they are participating in a very public action, voting. These types of implied analysis makes me cringe. He talks about "ghetto black children." Another cringe worthy moment. Rodriguez admitted he was jealous of the ghetto black teenagers loudness and confidence in their use of their own dialect. Which leads me to believe Rodriguez wants everyone to assimilate because he did.
       Near the end of this piece Rodriguez makes what I believe is an incomplete argument. The gist of it  is, it doesn't matter what the language you speak in. It's the emotion, the sound of the words that make it private or public. He talks about his grandmother. She told him stories of her childhood and it was the sounds that mattered. This confuses me because he spent so much time recalling his guilt after he could no longer speech spanish, when it would come out "horribly anglicized." And then he devotes two small paragraphs to this what I believe is an epiphany. If he came to this realization what happens to his private/public argument?
       Overall this piece was very thought provoking and although I agreed with his bottom-line: kids should be taught the language of the land they are in so they do not fall behind but for very different reasons that Rodriguez. He stressed assimilation which is a word that to me, has a negative connotation.