Aria Memoir Of A Bilingual Childhood Summary

For as long as the United States has been a country, there has been controversy over establishing English as the official language. Even the idolized US President Theodore Roosevelt had a firm belief the US has “room for but one language in this country and that is the English language”. In a 2010 poll conducted by Rasmussen, eighty-seven percent of American voters said they would support making English the official language. Immigrants would also benefit from establishing English as the national language, because after learning English they would be able to actively participate in the democratic system employed throughout the US. Although the United States is a notorious melting pot of different cultures and ethnicities, language should be legislated, because having multiple languages spoken in the public isolates minorities.
As a boy, the main problem he faced was he struggled to speak sufficient English. One factor that contributed to this problem was the bilingual education he received from a Roman Catholic School. Rodriguez described bilingual education as a “scheme” that “was foolish and certainly doomed.” The second contributing factor was his parents. As mexican immigrants, Rodriguez's parents never learned how to properly communicate in English. Although his parents weren’t directly inhibited by the inability to speak English fluently, Rodriguez recalled a common memory of his childhood where he felt his “clutching trust in [his parents] protection and power weaken” when they began to speak their limited English. Rodriguez didn’t feel like he belonged to public society until he was able to master speaking in English. Making English the national language would unify the entire