First gentleman: "if you're name is Rodriguez, then you must be spanish." Second Gentleman:"Actually I'm white and I don't speak a word of Spanish"

NAME OF AUTHOR and TEXT 

Richard Rodriguez and ARIA

AUTHOR’S ARGUMENT

Rodriguez may perhaps kind of mention that children whom do not speak english in the home, must learn to speak english so that they may compete in the real world. Unfortunately, those students may lose a feature that is part of their essence, their individuality.

QUOTES

“What I needed to learn in school was that I had the right and the obligation-to speak the public language of los gringos. “

Here, the author states that he wanted to speak the so called public language as he considered spanish his private language.

“What I did not believe was that I could speak a single public language. “

yeah, I am not sure I am following this. 

“Matching the silence I started hearing in public was a new quiet at home. The family's quiet was partly due to the fact that, as we children learned more and more English, we shared fewer and fewer words with our parents. Sentences needed to be spoken slowly when a child addressed his mother or father. (Often the parent wouldn't understand.] The child would need to repeat himself. (Still the parent misunderstood.) The young voice, frustrated, would end up saying, 'Never mind'-the subject was closed. “

I have to say it. I find it hard to believe that they lost their “closeness” over learning a new language. If the family was truly close before, they should’ve made sure that it continued. I feel like on particular incident really showed just how “close” they were.

“One night his children and even his wife helplessly giggled at his garbled English pronunciation of the Catholic Grace before Meals. Thereafter he made his wife recite the prayer at the start of each meal, even on formal occasions, when there were guests in the house.” I think what happened was too many incidents like this happened, and as the man of the house he decided he couldn’t take being teased and therefore just shut his mouth. Which would make the mother the head speaker and perhaps changing the dynamics of the family structure. One thing that I feel like should have happened here, was more understanding, helping and guiding for all the family members struggling to learn this language. When you think about it, while trying to teach your toddlers how to say words, you do not belittle them when they make mistakes, otherwise the child will likely decide to stay mute. I was five years old when I finally learned how to speak clear english. If people were constantly putting me down while i was learning it, I’d shut up too. And if people were constantly saying nevermind when talking to me, I’d have no idea what the hell was going on. So maybe this guy should have realized that his father was TRYING his best instead of making fun of him and ultimately quieting his dear ol’ dad down.

“But the bilingualists simplistically scorn the value and necessity of assimilation. “

here i think he is trying to reiterate that assimilation is important to an extent but that unfortunately bilingualists do not think so and find it despairingly a shame. can you tell I am getting tired? I think nyquil is not working too well either.

QUESTIONS/COMMENTS/POINTS TO SHARE

I am not even going to lie. This whole business about assimilation kind of puts me on the boat dock a lot. When I think about education in America, I try to think about what are we supposed to be teaching our kids, how should we be teaching them. When they come out of school year after year, what have they learned. What do they need to learn? So in the essence of language in our schools, and the amount of kids who do not speak english as their first language, and the hundreds of languages there are in this world. So where is the line drawn in the language department. Is it important to teach spanish speaking students in spanish. Or if we’re supposed to assimilate them, why should we? Do we even do that? Do we give the students their history books in spanish instead of english? Then how do we teach the german students, the african students, the laotian students? I think it’s weird that when we think of languages in this country we think of English and Spanish and when we think of races, we think black or white. I try to understand all the ups and downs of teaching and learning. The teachers and the students constantly trying to get past culture barriers and language barriers, and I’d like to see how some of the other countries deal with this, or don’t deal with this. I’d like someone to say HEY WE KNOW THE PERFECT WAY TO TEACH EVERY STUDENT ON THIS PLANET REGARDLESS OF RACE, ECONOMIC STATUS, CULTURE, GENDER, SEXUAL ORIENTATION, DISABILITY AND EVERY OTHER CATEGORY OUT THERE IN THIS REALM. Are we grasping at air, struggling every day to find a way, THE way to give every student what they need in order to learn and catapult past their potential learning ability. is “EQUITABLE” teaching really a possibility? For once, I’d like an article we read to not only say “hey this is what is wrong with us, here is how we fix it.” Is that even a possibility, or just wishful thinking.