think piece #2 Aria by Richard Rodriquez

Aria by Richard Rodriquez


Premise:

Confusion
Shyness
Lack of understand
Loss of closeness of family
Frustration
Denial
Americanism
Unfairness
Change
Silence
Hardships
Learning
Life lessons


Author’s argument:

Richard Rodriquez argues that when bilingual children are taught English they lose their ethnic backgrounds and at times tend to be ashamed of them.


Evidence:

1.”one Saturday morning I entered the kitchen where my parents were talking in Spanish. I did not realize that they were talking in Spanish however until, at the moment me, I heard their voices change to speak English”
2.” My mother! My father! After English became my primary language, I no longer knew what words to use when addressing my parents”
3.,"as we children learned more and more English, we shared fewer and fewer words with our parents."


Points to share:

I thought that this article was not a hard read. I didn’t have to go back many times and reread anything. Also I had to barely look anything up. I thought this article was very interesting never having to learn another language at such a young age I never knew what it was like. English was always the spoken language in my home. I can’t even imagine the difficulties this family went through and the hardships caused because of this. Rodriquez was very lucky to have parents that were willing to give up a lot for their children to be able to learn English. Teachers should not try to silence children’s second language but also incorporate it into their learning