Richard Rodriguez

Tiffany Scoco
Dr. Corinne McKamey
FNED: 346
27 October 2018

Aria by Richard Rodriguez

Summary: This article is talking about language barriers for children. The author is talking about his personal experience in school being a native spanish speaker and forced to learn the public language. He talks about how much easier it would have been for him if his teachers addressed him in spanish especially on the first day of school. He talks about how learning english was hard for him to do and the nuns at his school forced him to speak english in class along with the other students. The author says as a child he thought that english was a public language spoken at school and spanish was a private language spoken at home. He talks about the nuns visiting his house and asking his parents if spanish is the only language spoken at home because Richard, the author is having a hard time in class. His parents complied with the nuns and they began speaking english at home. His parents made learning english a game after dinner. Everyday Richard and his siblings attended a tutoring session in school to help with their english. Everyone in Richard’s family began speaking english and this was very unsettling to him. But it forced him to become a better student and become an english speaker. By seven years old Richard finally felt he was an American citizen, he had become Americanized and this was also unsettling to him. After english became his primary language, he was unsure how to speak to his parents anymore because everyday they learn new english words at school while the parents still only speak spanish and broken english. His house became very quiet because of the language barrier. Children lose a degree of individuality when becoming assimilated into public society.

Personal connections: I can relate to this article because I started taking Spanish class in High School, whereas Richard was taking English classes in Elementary School. It was very hard for me to keep up with the class and follow what the teacher was saying. It’s very hard to learn another language especially when your a teenager, the younger you are the easier it is for you to learn. I had a lot of trouble figuring out how to read the spanish words and the sounds they make just like the author of this article had a hard time figuring out how to read english words and the sounds they make. For me, learning Spanish is very frustrating because they have a lot of different words that all mean the same thing.

My thinking: This article makes me think about all the other children like Richard who have been forced to assimilate into American society. Reading this article made me feel sad for Richard and other children who go through similar situations because they lose their individuality and they feel like outcasts. They are being forced to change everything they know and believe in just because they live in America, it’s completely unfair to them. Richard was really upset about the deafening silence in his house after he and his siblings began speaking fluent English, while his parents spoke fluent Spanish and broken English. Little by little their house got quieter and quieter because the adults and the children couldn’t communicate well anymore. 

Talking points: Why do we as Americans force other cultures to become assimilated into our society?

I think we do this because we think it’s important for other cultures to blend into the dominant surrounding population. But in reality it really doesn’t matter, we are all different and unique in our own way. Forcing other cultures to be like us is trying to make everyone the same and if we continue to do that no one will be unique anymore.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-JcBFAuLc-0MW5DdnZyVnpGSHc/view Link to reading