Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Aria by Richard Rodriguez



Before reading Aria by Richard Rodriguez I never knew about how important speaking English is to achieving public individuality. I understand the importance of speaking English is school, but it isn't right to tell a student not to speak their first language and make them feel like they are wrong if they do. Students who do know more than one language have been proven to be better off than students speaking only one language as show in the link previous to this sentence. Its even been talked about that speaking two or more languages can help fight dementia! I couldn't ever imagine why someone wouldn't want to embrace a second language even in school. It bothers me even more that Rodriguez's teacher went to his house and convinced his family to speak primarily English because it would be better for them. This is absolutely ridiculous because that teacher is trying to change the cultural ties of Rodriguez's family.

Rodriguez mentions how "it would have pleased me to hear my teachers address me in Spanish when I entered the classroom. I would have felt much less afraid. I would have trusted them and responded with ease." (34) This expresses Rodriguez's fear of learning English and assimilating into society. He would have been less afraid if he was welcomed into it more warmly and if the teacher had expressed that his language was welcomed as an aid to learn English. This part of the article reminds me of Johnson’s article Privilege, Power, and Differences. Johnson talks about how people fear what is unfamiliar to them. (3)

Rodriguez talks about how when his family and himself made the transition to primarily speaking English it didn't feel right. It made his family less close together. He talks about how learning and improving on English allowed his family to become more social and involved in society, rather than spending all of their time together. By switching the primarily spoken language of his family to English the bond they had together over their common language that not many others in society could relate to was broken.

Talking point: I think that schools need to make more of an effort to use other languages to help students learn English. Having kids take more language classes in order to understand ESL students does not seem like a good idea to me because most students are already overwhelmed by the amount of work that society makes them do in normal schooling.


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