Hunger

Hunger
Nilsa Mariano stated that “The blonde, tall woman of solid build and thick glasses who thinks the children at her school should continue to develop their artistic side because after all the school isn’t raising rocket scientists here” (522) because she wanted the children at her school to embrace their origins without the fear of being ridiculed or criticized. This was achieved when the narrator spent time with them every day at her school helping them to improve their artistic sides and the result of it was immense. “The school was about 30 percent Latino or from Spanish-speaking homes” (Mariano, 522) yet the school system only adopted a bilingual system which made cultural integration difficult for the Latinos, Blacks and Asians.
Hunger for expression in one’s native language is vital and her perspective is well spelt out, but I believe she is wrong. Her saying considers the expression of the student’s artistic origin and not just the conventional art and language forms, what she expected was that the students should understand their language and culture as well as any other as it would be unjust for them to study art and culture forms without studying theirs as well. The concept is good but the approach is not because this will estrange the students to idea of embracing other methods of learning and thus the isolation of their interest and make a self-centered approach of learning since they will have it in mind that everything from then on should revolve around their origin. Also, the use of a multicultural learning approach may more or less make the students have a go at language and arts but may just be average in all the languages since their focus will be split by this approach.
The kids had a negative effect from her perspective because this completely criticizes and disapproves the tall blonde woman educational curriculum. The students want to disapprove of any other culture that is not theirs. This effect can outlast the initial stage of learning and pell-mell into the future. When the students completely believe that there are second class citizens and see themselves as not a part of the community. It could also lead to lack of interest for other cultures as the students begin to develop a form of resistance from anything that is non-Hispanic. The reason for this lies in their thirst for expressive freedom and the need to break free from what they have viewed as chains; the lack of native expression at school.
Educational system indirectly made the Hispanics to hunger for the need to explore their native arts. In some cases, students are assumed to be dull because of their nationality or race. Becker and Andrew expresses this concern that “there are many cases of schools deciding students of color are 'not college material' and enrolling them in less than the most rigorous courses” (1). This negative effect can only be understood when felt, it is therefore, “no doubt that Generally speaking, school systems suffer from institutional racism” (Becker and David) proposed this (1)
The hunger the students had was not a usual hunger; it was not one for food but for acceptance, for acknowledgement and notice, Mariano reports that “the hunger to be recognized as real people, with gifts and talents that the world needs, The hunger to feel that they, too, could speak, dream, dance, and eat in Spanish, without fear of being seen as different or less” (522) is all they desired. The tall woman of solid build and thick glasses deeply expressed herself without any sentiments because she felt their culture is as important but the negative effect on the kids also had its own effect.

Reference
Becker, David. “Change in education: As Latino students near a majority in public schools, questions arise on how California will address shift.” Business and Economics Jul 24, 2006 : 1. Print.
Nilsa Mariano. Hunger. (522)