udwig Wittgenstein once said in his book Logico Tractatus Philosophicus ,“The limits of my language means the limits of my world.” This quotation means language has no limit, it’s something that can be translated into a wide variety. Both Amy Tan in the essay, “Mother Tongue” and Richard Rodriguez in the essay, “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” write about their struggle with their identities not only because of their race, but also the language there families speak. Amy Tan and Richard Rodriguez both struggled with there families language conflicting with the need to speak the language of society. While children they share similarities with their struggles, and they differ in their perception of the importance of maintaining their families…
Richard Rodriguez was born on July 31, 1944, in San Francisco, California, to Mexican immigrants Leopoldo and Victoria Moran Rodriguez, the third of their four children. When Rodriguez was still a young child, the family moved to Sacramento, California, to a small house in a comfortable white neighborhood. "Optimism and ambition led them to a house (our home) many blocks from the Mexican side of town.… It never occurred to my parents that they couldn't live wherever they chose," writes Rodriguez in Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez, his well-received 1981 autobiography. This first book placed him in the national spotlight but brought scorn from many supporters of affirmative action and bilingual education.…
When Richard Rodriguez entered first grade at Sacred Heart School in Sacramento, California, his English vocabulary consisted of barely fifty words. All his classmates were white. He kept quiet, listening to the sounds of middle-class American speech, and feeling alone. After school he would return home to the pleasing, soothing sounds of his family's Spanish.…
I can somewhat relate to Rodriguez’s life. Both of our parents are immigrants whose first language is not English. However, while Rodriguez slowly drifted away from his family’s origin and language throughout the course of the book, I think I have grown closer to my family. Also, Rodriguez was ashamed of his parents’ accent when they spoke English in public. When I was younger, I would also get nervous when I heard my mom talking to the other moms at a museum. I am proud of my parents for coming to a foreign place.…
Francisco shows an interview , he conducted, that involved elders in the bilingual education. Ramon Billescas, the interviewee, tells a story about his school experience. He mentions a story where he was spanked because he was speaking Spanish. Francisco included this in his presentation, in order, for the audience understand the overall concept. Furthermore, he explained the rationale for making UTRGV a fully integrated bilingual, bi-cultural and bi-literate institution. Francisco spoke about the initiative and the absence of bilingualism at…
It was not until later in his life that Rodriguez realized that his teachers’ actions were ones to appreciate. The conflict between speaking Spanish and speaking English had come to a head. No longer did Rodriguez hear the warm sounds of Spanish fill his house.…
His essay, “Aria,” depicts the struggles a bilingual person will undergo as they attempt to both assimilate into the American culture, and attempt to simultaneously preserve their culture. The concepts that are emphasized within his essay include: the struggles of minorities in adjusting to the American culture and lifestyle, the revamp of certain educational aspects that are meant to benefit students, but in the long run, damage the students, and the struggle of preserving cultures, all of which are applicable in modern…
Richard Rodriguez, on the other hand, was a child who was born 150 years later in a Spanish speaking family. In his essay "The Lonely, Good Company of Books", Rodriguez narrates his learning experience and explains how he started learning from reading books.…
Se Habla Espanol by Tanya Barrientos was about a Latina girl who struggled with her identity. She was born in Guatemala but has lived in America since she was three years old. In the beginning she was somewhat embarrassed by her Hispanic heritage. Tanya felt inferior to the white people because of how she looked and because of her last name. The tone of the essay was a serious and desperate cry for help. It seemed she was speaking to anyone who could listen and relate to her. Tanya wrote from her point of view and how she felt like a “gringa” trapped in a Latina girl’s body.…
Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Colombians are the result of a culture that despite not living in our country of origin is part of each of us. It is something that identifies us as individuals wherever we go, and that is why language is through which we express our feelings, frustrations, our achievements, and joys.It is because we do not express our deepest thoughts through writing as Julia Alvarez would say in an interview who once received the advice of his mother that if not Could show what he felt wrote on a sheet of paper. Likewise, it is on that piece of paper that writers such as Julia Alvarez in Bilingual Sestina, Sandra Cisneros in The House on Mango Street and Cristina Garcia have raised a voice to make a note of what are our…
I believe that Rodriguez “private language” is Spanish to him. Rodriguez growing up in Sacramento led him to be an outsider because of the language English. However, at home his whole family spoke Spanish so Rodriguez being at home was being on a private getaway. As for my family, we all do speak English but we add a twist to the way we talk with nicknames and sayings that no one would understand but my family because it’s our “private language”.…
Rodriguez’s parents had very little schooling. He recalls that in third grade he was “annoyed when he was unable to get help”, on a simple mathematics assignment (546).In Hoggart’s recall on the other hand, the student was much more independent and rarely turned to his parents for aid. It is obvious that in the light of family support Rodriguez was “better of”. His mother was: “a new girl to America [she] had been awarded a high school diploma by teachers to busy or careless to notice that she hardly spoke English” (552). Rodriguez became very conscious and somewhat ashamed of his parents language barrier. Even…
However, while Anzaldua refers to herself as Chicano (Mexican American), describing in great detail the challenges of learning yet another acceptable way to communicate, (“for people who live in a country in which English is the reining tongue but who are not Anglo,”)(56) the Rodriguez’ family were immigrants. Rodriguez does not specify when the family moved to the United States, although he does mention that as a first grade student his initial difficulties in learning English were shared by his two older siblings as well. His recollection of a visit to his parents by three nuns from their school, “Do your children speak only Spanish at home, Mrs. Rodriguez?” “That Richard especially seems so timid and shy,” (10-11) would indicate that the move was fairly recent. Both author’s parents used some form of Spanish to communicate in the home but were anxious that their children learn English. While Rodriguez’ parents were especially concerned with wanting their children to fit in with their American peers at school, Anzaldua’s mother voiced a particular concern that her daughter’s accented English could hinder her ability to obtain good employment and her education would be…
whEN I wAS FoUr YEArS oLd, I fell in love. It was not a transient…
Ever since I started school, I felt an ease to learn and catch on anything we were taught in class. I felt that I was very quick to get the hang of just about anything, but another thing I realized that I wish I did not have was also that I was very lazy at a beginning. However, when I really set my mind to something, or find interest in anything, I am capable of making wonders with it and taking things to another level.…