...26 July 2014 Bilingual, Bilingualism, and a Forgotten Language In the essays “Aria: a Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” written by Richard Rodriguez and “Loss of Family Languages: Should Educators Be Concerned” written by Lily Wong Fillmore, the authors are concerned about immigrants forgetting their native languages as they get Americanized. Both authors are targeting a mature audience of immigrants, which have come to America to become citizens. Both authors use concerned tone with hopes that their audience will want to contribute to change. Furthermore, Fillmore draws her evidence from stories of other writers’ essays. Rodriguez, on the other hand illustrates his evidence from personal experiences and memories of his life while growing up. This essay exemplifies the differences and similarity of the evidence used, tones, styles, and the intended audiences. Fillmore’s and Rodriguez’s evidence are similar and different, in their support of the idea of bilingual education in schools. Fillmore’s evidence differs from Rodriguez’s as she uses statics, research, and other writer’s quotes as her support. She uses this Supreme Court’s ruling to show that the court believes immigrants require assistance staying bilingual, “… Lau v. Nichols held that these children must be provided instructional help to overcome the linguistic barrier…” (Fillmore 260). She also cites the story of a Chinese immigrant family that falls apart as the kids became Americanized. Rodriguez supports his evidence...
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...In the story “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood”, by Richard Rodriguez, there is a switch. At a young age, Rodriguez was forced by the school system to stop speaking Spanish at home and start speaking English the whole time. Although he became proficient in school, having no trouble with reading or writing in English, there was a price for this advantage Rodrigues gained. Slowly but surely, Rodriguez started to lose touch with his culture, letting it fade away like his memory of Spanish. Aria is just one example of many stories that chronicles a switch between American and Hispanic culture. One must always give, and usually this ‘give’ of the American culture is painted in a very negative light. Many Hispanic-Americans recognize what they...
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...In the essay, “Aria:Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood,” Richard Rodriguez exposes the readers to the nature of being bilingual and living in America. Richard Rodriguez not only emphasizes the sound of language but also the context behind it. Through his paragraphs, he goes into depth about the education system, the public, private, and intimacy language, and how much coming home has changed over the years for him. In his essay, “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood”, Rodriguez uses anecdotes, strong arguments, and his own voice to successfully argue that bilingual education is impractical, and a child using their native language as well as English in school and public life is not needed. In the first chapter, Rodriguez talks about the struggles of growing up in a Mexican home but when he leaves his house, he enters a whole new world. Using anecdotes Rodriguez states, “I was a bilingual child, a certain kind - socially disadvantaged - the son of working-class parents, both Mexican immigrants” (Rodriguez 322). Rodriguez uses many anecdotes like this throughout the essay to persuade his readers that being bilingual isn’t an advantage. As a child it can be very difficult going to a school where English is the primary language, and so Rodriguez felt that his native language was one that was private. His language was not socially acceptable by others and so he felt that he was obligated to learn the public language which was English. And until he learned English he didn’t feel welcomed...
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...Communication is essential in a community. Through language, individuals are able to share experiences and knowledge. However, conflict arises when one is forced to choose between multiple languages in order to communicate in public. In Richard Rodriguez’s “Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood”, he argues that bilingual education causes people to lose their identity. He crafts his argument by using anecdote and personification, and anaphora. Richard Rodriguez proves his position against bilingual education by revealing his experiences through anecdote in order to illustrate the detrimental effects of bilingualism. He recalls the feeling of losing one’s identity due to bilingual education by stating, “After listening to me, he looked away...
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...given the chance to work; they work hard but are treated and paid miserably. Even the health care provided to immigrants is sometimes cruel because of where they come from. Undocumented immigrants are abused all the time and because of their illegal crime the mistreatment is thought to be acceptable, but they aren’t the only ones that are being mistreated. Documented immigrants also go through harm of the government and society. Legal immigrants are treated different because of their inability of speaking English, or speaking with an accent. Many Americans’ seem to believe that just because somebody doesn’t speak English as they do, they don’t deserve to be treated as equal. In “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” by Richard Rodriguez you can see how he as child was treated different. Rodriguez being raised in Sacramento, California by Mexican Immigrants had difficulty with the English language and growing up in the society he lived in. Immigrants are mistreated in the daily basis just because of where they come from. They are unequally paid, made fun of, looked down on, treated differently and even those services that should be provided to everyone equally are refused. Several Americans feel a sense of power over immigrant; power that leads them to look down on immigrants. Just because someone comes from a different country or talks differently from you does not give you the right to treat them different or look down on them like if they were something less of you. Immigrants...
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...This is not only difficult for the parents, but the children as well when they start school. The children are forced to speak a specific language to communicate with their teachers and classmates. Although it is complicated to learn a new language, it is really necessary, especially in school. In Richard Rodriguez’s, “ Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood”, he shares his story of having to leave his native language behind to learn a new language and how that led to his success. But Victor Villanueva’s,“Whose Voice Is It Anyway?: Rodriguez’ Speech in Retrospect”, states how he also had to learn a new language but he did not forget his native language. Villanueva states the importance of not forgetting the native language as it is a way of identification and communication with...
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...Growing Up Bilingual Growing up knowing more than one language has many advantages but then again people do face challenges. An advantage in being bilingual would be the obvious of getting a job adding to that would be the salary being received. Another up would be being able to travel to where your second language is spoken and not feeling like an outcast. Now having that in mind if you are an immigrant that has recently moved somewhere where your native language is not spoken that would be a problem because now you would feel like an outcast. On top of being an outcast you have no way of communicating with anyone because your native language is, let us say Spanish, and you live in Houston where the dominate language is English. But, after a while you learn your second language and can start passing up your downs and receive your advantages of being bilingual. As your growing up your learning your “new” language but before that you were “socially disadvantaged” as said in Richard Rodriguez’s “A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood”. This is said to be a disadvantage, not of being bilingual but it is the step you have to take before being able to be considered bilingual. As Rodriguez stated in his short story he was also the “problem student” only because he was not completely familiar with this new language he eventually had to take up. His family was also part of being “socially disadvantage” they hardly knew any English and had trouble communicating with their surrounding...
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...All my childhood home videos are of me running around in a diaper like any other child’s home video; however, the major difference between my home videos and others is that I am running around screaming in Hindi. As I grew older and began to go to preschool the videos slowly transitioned to me speaking English. I came very close to completely forgetting how to speak Hindi, yet my parents only spoke to me in Hindi at home. Even though speaking another language has countless benefits, I have always felt different from the typical American teenager. Richard Rodriguez describes how speaking a distinct language created a barrier between his family and the rest of the country whereas Audre Lorde retells her first encounter with racism when she visited Washington D.C. Richard Rodriguez’s essay “Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” and Audre Lorde’s essay...
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...Growing up knowing more than one language has many advantages but then again people do face challenges. An advantage in being bilingual would be the obvious of getting a job adding to that would be the salary being received. Another up would be being able to travel to where your second language is spoken and not feeling like an outcast. Now having that in mind if you are an immigrant that has recently moved somewhere where your native language is not spoken that would be a problem because now you would feel like an outcast. On top of being an outcast you have no way of communicating with anyone because your native language is, let us say Spanish, and you live in Houston where the dominate language is English. But, after a while you learn your second language and can start passing up your downs and receive your advantages of being bilingual. As your growing up your learning your “new” language but before that you were “socially disadvantaged” as said in Richard Rodriguez’s “A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood”. This is said to be a disadvantage, not of being bilingual but it is the step you have to take before being able to be considered bilingual. As Rodriguez stated in his short story he was also the “problem student” only because he was not completely familiar with this new language he eventually had to take up. His family was also part of being “socially disadvantage” they hardly knew any English and had trouble communicating with their surrounding neighbors. They spoke what...
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...Her response was, “I think learning new languages help us learn more about other people's culture and how they grew or live like and what their language means to them”. After furthering the questioned I learned that Young found that a person should be able to speak their native language without judgment. A person should not be looked down upon just because they do not mean societies criteria. I interviewed a student at Tri-City United that is bilingual, her name is Guadalupe Ruiz. Ruiz is the daughter of two Hispanic speaking parents, she speaks Spanish and English. In an interview with Ruiz, she was asked, “What does language mean to you?”. And Ruiz simply responded with, “Language is very important to me. Language means being able to communicate and understand others”. Language has helped Ruiz her whole life, she enjoys being bilingual so she can help others to...
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...Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodríguez Hunger of Memory is an autobiography of the writer Richard Rodríguez and his transition from youth to manhood told through a series of recollected stories. The premise of his writing was centered mainly on his struggle to maintain both his Mexican heritage and closeness to his Spanish-speaking family, while at the same time being assimilated into American culture and obtaining an advanced education. Within the book Richard Rodríguez illustrates his contempt for affirmative action and bilingual education, two practices that had directly burdened his life while growing up. One of his main conflicts was grounded in his own family unintentionally being pulled away from him by losing the most important medium of relation, their language. Through his narrative, Richard Rodríguez makes a convincing argument against the implementation of affirmative action, even as one who stood to benefit from the program. When he was very young, Richard Rodríguez immigrated to the United States with his family to live in a predominantly white-Anglo, middle class neighborhood in Sacramento, California. Rodríguez’s parents were poor, but what money they could scrape together they used to send their children to the local Roman Catholic elementary school, Sacred Heart. Rodríguez knew less than 50 words of English at the start of his attendance in school, leading him to be introverted and shy in class. He rarely spoke, and finally...
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...Sydney Hirschman English 101 Due July 18th 2012 Words:1254 Robert Fuentes Americanization For many years, the United Sates has been attracting immigrants from a variety of different races, countries and religions to come and live in a land full of freedom and opportunity. These immigrants are slowly but surely turning America into a culture melting pot, giving it the most diversity people have seen in a lifetime. Although it is a common misconception, these people are not just looking to live in America for working privileges. Their real desire is to become something that depicts pride and honor, an American. Being an American in a country as diverse as ours means more than just living on American soil, it has endless benefits that allows one to feel free. Unfortunately, the rapid flow of immigrants into America has led to many issues. One of the main ones is the concept of assimilation, which has been disputed for years due to the capacity of the incoming immigrants. Jay Nordlinger, in his essay “Bassackwards: Construction Spanish and Other Signs of the Times” notes that not “everyone who comes to America is dying to melt into the pot”. Yet he stresses, as does Linda Chavez in her essay “Supporting Family Values”, the need for immigrants to assimilate to American culture. These two concepts have been floating around America since the first illegal immigrants started to show up and they’ve been controversial ever since. Everyone is looking for a happy medium for the...
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...Age discrimination is a large issue in the United States today. All ages can be discriminated against, teenagers are considered shifty and untrustworthy, elderly considered incapable, youth considered boisterous. It affects not only the people who are discriminated against, but also those who lose valuable relationships by judging them based on age. An example of this is one day me and a couple of friends were hanging out one night in Times Square just going into random stores looking around, taking pictures, and doing what normal teenagers do when they’re in a group. We all walk laughing into the M&M store. We walk by the section where they had the random little M&M toys, walk by the candy, and then walk out without making any purchases. What is the first perception of this? It might be, and in many cases it is, that we stole something. Maybe the employee working behind the register will even go as far as to call the police on these teens, who didn’t steal anything, but were discriminated against simply because we were “unruly teenagers”. This happens every day, all over America. We don’t tell the youth very much, because they “won’t understand”, they’re “too young”. We gawk when elderly people run marathons, or even participate in simple recreational activities such as volleyball or swimming, because they are “old”, and “incapable”. People who are discriminated against, no matter the reason, can be hurt by it. Age discrimination is the same as racial discrimination...
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...Through the stories of Baca, Rodriguez, Fatima, and the film Quinceanera have shown us that, they are the representatives of the immigrants of working class. They want to exist in a civilized society, they need to overcome the barriers in their lives that is language. For many people in the host country, language is a simple matter, but it is really difficult for immigrants. Immigrants, especially the working class shows disparities in social class of American modern lifestyle through the language. Being immigrants are adapting to a new language that is not easy....
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...Tristan De Mesa Professor Hedgecock English 1A 27 June 2014 What You’re Missing Dear Coach Garret’s Class, On the court from the separating black lines I stare up at the scoreboard. The clock reads 10 seconds left. My team is down by 1 point 45 to 46. We need just one basket and we are out of time-outs. The play was set for me to shoot it. I was not confident. My teammate inbounds the ball to me as I yell for the shot. Planting my feet just between the three-point line and free-throw line I get the orange, spherical ball into my hands. Gazing at the clock for a second, time was running out. My fingertips place themselves on the grooves of the ball for the perfect shot. The only objects I see are two lengthy defenders rushing at me to block my shot. I quickly jump reaching as high as I could with the ball I raise my hands releasing it before the defenders could block it with two seconds left on the clock. The ball spinning in the air, amazingly hits it’s target swishing into the hoop, winning the game for my team. It was my second year trying out for the basketball team at Tesoro High School. The gym had not changed, it had clean floors, the basketball hoops for pristine, the nets on the hoops we’re shiny white, and the basketballs, were brand new that when you touched the ball it had amazing grip like having rubber gloves on. We just found out we were getting a new coach for the Junior Varsity team, which I was aiming for. We honestly did not know what to expect, but...
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