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 …show more content…
The problem is that often times, like in the case of Richard Rodriguez in “Aria”, people learning English aren't really becoming bilingual. Instead they are subjected to “subtractive bilingualism”, where they forget their first (home) language in favor of learning the new language, usually English (Wong Filmore, 323). Rodriguez forgot so much of his native tongue that he lost his ability to communicate in Spanish with family and family friends. He explains further, “Pocho they called me… a Mexican-American who, in becoming an American, forgets his native society.” Rodriguez did not lose his memory of his familia, or any of the traditions that he was raised in. However, losing Spanish was taken by many as losing his heritage. If he doesn’t have the ability to speak in his mother tongue, then how connected can he be to to his culture? George Steiner once said ““when a language dies, a way of understanding the world dies with it, a way of looking at the world. ” When Rodriguez lost his ability to speak Spanish, he lost the way of understanding that his people have, a way of understanding that can only be understood in