Talking Points #2

Aria

by Richard Rodriguez

Rodriguez argues that while non-English speaking students will shed parts of their previous self once educated in the "public language," they will soon discover their own "public identity" which is crutial for success in society.

Quotes

• "From the doorway of another room, spying the visitors, I noted the incongruity--the clash of two worlds, the faces and voices of school intruding upon the familiar setting of home."

Young non English-speaking students have difficulty viewing their home lives and school lives as being connected. Everything at home is familiar, comforting, and safe, while things at school are strange, different, and scary. I think that the author included this line to describe how he, as a young minority, had felt about his two worlds colliding.

• "But the special feeling of closeness at home was diminished by then. Gone was the desperate, urgent, intense feeling of being home...we remained a loving family, but one greatly changed."

By forcing the family to only speak together in English while at home, the family lost much of its closeness and feelings of comfort. The family shared less and less because the foreign language had erected too many barriers.

• "So they [bilingualists] do not realize that while one suffers a diminished sense of private individuality by becoming assimilated into public society, such assimilation makes possible the achievement of public individuality."

I think what Rodriguez is saying is that though these children will inevitably lose some of who they previously knew themselves to be, they are now able to be an active member of society, and that is crutial for success.

I really enjoyed reading this article. I love languages, and so it was nice to sort of be a fly on the wall of this child's life as he begins to learn a foreign language in a foreign society. I agree with Rodriguez in that having a public identity is crutial, but I think that individuality is nice too. Assimilation is key but I hope that once the English language is learned, not everything Spanish (or Chinese or French, etc.) is forgotton.