In the play, Major Barbara, by George Bernard Shaw, a Character named Andrew Undershaft tells his daughter Barbara, “You have learnt something. That always at first feels as if you had lost something.” Undershaft uses this quote in a reference to an event in Barbara’s life that has shattered one of her illusions about life. Two of the stories and authors featured in The Norton Reader, Aria by Richard Rodriguez and Always Living in Spanish by Marjorie Agosín seem to directly fit this quote because of their sense of losing their identity, culture and heritage when they first came to the United States. By learning the new “American” ways of life and becoming fluent in the English language both authors felt as if they were losing a sense of the person they were, because so much of their identity had been lost. In the story Aria, Rodriguez immediately notices the differences between English and his beloved Spanish language. Speaking English in the classroom wasn’t vital to Rodriguez feeling as if he had lost his identity until English became the primary language in his household because of the poor progress that he was making in school. Once Rodriguez had experienced speaking only English in his home, his whole world was changed. Not only had the new English language at first brought the feeling of losing his identity, but now it had brought about the feeling of losing his entire family’s identity. Also, the family was no longer as close-knit as they used to be because not all of the family members were able to speak English as well as the others. In the story, Always Living in Spanish by Marjorie Agosín, Agosín’s first impression of the United States is her experience in the classroom. Agosín expresses the fact that she doesn’t recognize anything around her, “Not even the sky has the same constellations, the trees and the fauna the same names or sounds, or the rubbish the same smell” (532 Agosín). This plays a big part in the immediate dislike of her surroundings in America, and part of the convincing that she needed to understand that learning a second language wasn’t what she wanted to do for fear of losing where she felt as if she truly belonged. Another experience that learning the English language brought to both Agosín and Rodriguez was the loss of their culture and heritage. Both authors experienced a loss of closeness with their families due to losing the feelings that were accompanied by the intimate sounds that had been spoken when they were using their very own “private” languages. For Rodriguez, once English had become his primary language, the only place that he could find comfort in these words, ironically would be when he was in a public place. There he was able to communicate with other Spanish speakers and listen to the way that they made the syllables come across to express their emotions. For Agosín, losing her heritage and culture meant losing her ability to preserve her beautiful language and the ability to write for her fellow Chileans in a language that they all understood so well. Agosín describes the preservation of her language as, “To write in Spanish is for me a gesture of survival. And because of translation, my memory has now become a part of the memory of many others” (534 Agosín). For both authors, learning the English language brought about a great sense of opportunity, but it also brought about a sense of feeling of loss. Some would argue that the opportunity outweighed the loss, but for Agosín it doesn’t seem like that was the case. Instead of embracing the new culture, she was instead reminded of how much she loved the place that she had grown up, and wanted future Chileans to be able to understand the past of Chile like she had experienced it. For Rodriguez on the other hand, with the loss also came the ability to find the new person that he wanted to become, even though he had to sacrifice the relationship that he had with his family. In conclusion, Agosín and Rodriguez would have definitely agreed with this quote; although both authors had very different endings to their stories. Agosín would have viewed this quote as something that she was missing that she was able to get back. Agosín learned the English language but still refused to be an author in English because she didn’t want to lose her heritage. In Agosín’s case, if she had continued with her experience of learning English and fully embracing the American way of life she would have lost everything that was important to her, her heritage and her culture. For Rodriguez, the opposite is true, at first Rodriguez was on the verge of losing his identity as well, but from the help of his teachers and his family (after he was encouraged to only speak English in his home) he was able to better understand himself as a person. Rodriguez was able to find his niche in society, and was also able to become an outstanding member of his community. With that being said, Rodriguez was able to turn his loss of his identity into something great, even though he too felt a loss of closeness with his family.

Works Cited

Agosín, Marjorie. “Always Living In Spanish.” The Norton Reader. Ed. Linda Peterson. W.W. Norton & Company: New York, NY, 2008. 532-534. Print.

Rodriguez, Richard. “Aria.” The Norton Reader. Ed. Linda Peterson. W.W. Norton & Company: New York, NY, 2008. 517 – 522. Print.