Summary Response Aria - Grade: B PDF

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Alison Campbell...

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Taylor L. Wartberg Ms. Allison Campbell English 101 – Comp. I October 29, 2014 Families that Speak Together, Stay Together? Richard Rodriguez was born into a family of Mexican immigrants who moved to Sacramento early on in his life. He began his education at a Catholic elementary school. This was his first experience with the English language, when he soon began to see as a “public language” unlike the “intimate language” of Spanish that his family used. He didn’t speak very much in class early on in his time at the elementary school, so the nuns finally went to his house to speak to his family and figure out what the problem was. They discovered that his family only spoke in Spanish at home, and requested that his parents start using English more in their home so that he would feel more comfortable speaking in class. His parents agreed and soon they spoke English very frequently at home. Rodriguez began to become more involved in his classes, but in his home life he felt more like a stranger than part of the family. He felt that the intimacy had left because they hardly used Spanish anymore. Throughout Aria, Rodriguez talks about how, although they gain a sense of public identity, bilinguals do lose a sense of intimacy with their home culture. He also focuses a bit on how many of the visitors in his home could speak English to him, but would not. He felt that this was because they felt that he no longer belonged in their “circle.” In many ways, I understand where Rodriguez is coming from. I did not necessarily grow up in a bilingual home, although many of my family members are fluent

in French and it is used at home quite a bit, but I did attend high school at the International High School of New Orleans my freshman and sophomore year. Majority of the students at IHS were of Hispanic decent, and most of their families were very welcoming to outsiders, even though I couldn’t speak Spanish. Through my years there, I did learn a lot of Spanish, and I can still understand quite a bit, but while I attended school there I dated a student from Honduras named Oscar. He lived in New Orleans with his step-father, who was African-American, so his step-father and I never had language barrier issues. His mom lived in New York, and we would video chat or Skype her frequently and, although her English was the best and I knew the bare minimum of Spanish, we always tried really hard to communicate and it usually went over pretty well. His family in Honduras, however, was a completely different story. His uncle, who spoke very good English, refused to speak to me in English. He wanted me to speak to him in Spanish. I always tried my hardest, and Oscar did whatever he could to help, but no matter what, because of the language barrier, I was always seen as an outsider despite the fact that I could understand most of what they were saying, I just couldn’t respond. Throughout the duration of our relationship, language was a serious problem between his family and I, and I wonder to this day if bilingual education would’ve helped at all on either of our parts, but I also know that even if I had received the language education needed to communicate with them, that I would still be seen as an outsider. Rodriguez was wrong, it is not language that sets the level of intimacy, it is the bond shared with the people. It depends on how hard the people involved are willing to work toward gaining and/or keeping that intimacy whether or not the bonds prevail. It truly is

up to the person in question. Bilingual education may work for some, but it won’t always work for others....