Thursday, October 3, 2013

Aria








Richard Rodriguez’s memoir represents the complexities of being a native Spanish speaker at home, a bilingual student during the day, and coping with the pressures of having to choose one language over the other. This experience is something that is shared by many bilingual people, yet we hardly hear about it. We [society] have expectations that we impose on people, yet we are unwilling to be flexible or change ourselves to benefit the greater good. If you look at the demographics of our country, it is shifting. The questions I have are why shouldn’t our expectations shift as well? And, why can’t we motivate change within ourselves? It is time that we took initiative and promote the diversity within our culture. It is good to be multi-faceted, flexible, and willing to educate yourself and go against the grain. For Rodriguez’s, his teachers came to his home and asked his parents “Is it possible for you and your husband to encourage your children to practice their English when they come home?” (Rodriguez 35). Naturally, his parents agreed. He recalls that it was like a “game”, something he and his family did at dinner. Although, this “game” helped Rodriguez learn English it had detrimental effects to his family’s cultural identity.

 There was such a focus on speaking, writing, and reading English that his native language started to become obsolete. When I first read Aria, it clicked, but not completely. It wasn’t until I went in to a middle school to volunteer today, that I witnessed just how challenging a silent dialogue can be. Allan Johnson says that “we have to say it, right? Here it is… How can we teach Spanish speaking kids English, if we can’t speak Spanish to explain how to speak English??? In order to teach, the line of communication has to be opened and understood. I had several interesting conversations with students and teachers whose primary focus is ESL. I was in a classroom today where the majority of the student’s native languages were Spanish, Creole, and Portuguese. Oddly enough, the teachers in this ESL class spoke only English. How does this happen? How can anybody expect results when the line of communication is silenced because of a language barrier? After reading Rodriguez’s Aria, my entire mindset changed. I always thought that it was imperative that everyone speak English, I mean after all we are in America right? And then it hit me, my opinion has been shaped to believe that English was the only language that was deemed acceptable, because that is what I was “taught” to believe. The reality is that the world IS changing, the population IS becoming more diverse, and we have to keep up with the times, otherwise we will become stagnant. For a country as diverse as America it is amazing how unaccepting, and unappreciative society can be to those who create diversity, yet we insist that ‘they’ conform to what we are ‘comfortable’ with. This is unacceptable and it needs to change. Let’s make it happen!!

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