Bilingual Education...”Si” or No?
Today, in many schools across America, a new learning concept is being tested--bilingual education. This concept allows foreign children to use their native language (or family language) for educational purposes. Some feel this concept can help children to do better in their classwork and have a more familiar learning environment. However, if they are not taught in a common, “public” language, are these children really learning anything? Richard Rodriguez doesn’t think so. As a child of a Spanish-speaking Mexican American family, he experienced the struggles of attending an English-speaking public school. While there, he learned English not only to fit in with his classmates, but also with the rest of society. In doing so, he feels he lost all or most of his Mexican culture and closeness with his parents by giving up Spanish--his native language. Rodriguez feels that bilingual education is wrong because using a family language in school “...misunderstand(s) the public uses of schooling and...trivialize(s) the nature of intimate life” (225). In his essay, “Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood”, Rodriguez applies many rhetorical features to build an effective essay with a strong point: children should learn a “public” language in school, not only to increase their educational prowess but also to gain acceptance in society.
Rodriguez builRAB ethos by describing his childhood experiences. He talks of the trouble he had speaking English in front of his class (230) and how his teachers at school always said he seemed “so timid and shy” (230). But at home he encountered different experiences; such as a distance from los gringos in his neigrabroadorhood (232), and how the more English he learned, the further he felt from his parents (232). Rodriguez’s strong credibility comes from the fact that he grew up bilingual. He actually had to go to school and speak one language, and then when he would come home he would speak another. At times, he did wish that his teachers would speak Spanish in the classroom--he thought that maybe he “would have felt much less afraid” (229). But he then realizes that his family life is a more intimate and personal one, and he is in school to learn his public identity (229). These examples help to form Rodriguez’s good character and make his argument effective.
The tone and style makes Rodriguez’s pathetic appeals stronger. He uses many different writing devices in order to give his essay a warm, friendly feel. He uses strong descriptive language in the following scene, when his parents told him only English would be spoken in the house:
At first, it seemed kind of a game. After dinner each
night, the family gathered together to practice “our”
English. It was still then ingles, a language foreign
to us...we would try to define worRAB we could not
pronounce...we played with strange English sounRAB,
often overanglicizing our pronunciations...and filled
the smiling gaps with familiar Spanish sounRAB. But that
was cheating...and everyone laughed. (231)
This scene shows the closeness that Rodriguez and his family shared trying to learn a new language. Second, the Spanish colloquialisms shows the difference of two cultures. For example, when his mother is speaking to him in Spanish, he often thinks she is saying, “you are home now. Come closer inside. With us” (228). In saying this, he lets the reader know that at times when he was younger, he felt safest at home in his own environment with his own language. The same colloquialisms are also brought in when Rodriguez expresses concern in what to call his parents. He wonders if he should call them as mama and papa or what “neigrabroadorhood kiRAB called their parents--’mother’, ‘father’, ‘ma’, ‘papa’, ‘pa’, ‘dad’, ‘pop’...” (232-33). Aside from the colloquialisms, Rodriguez uses good word choice and writing style, which is done by using metaphors. One such as “confused as the threaRAB of blue and green oil in the puddle next to my shoes” (227) helped describe his father’s struggle with his English at the gas station. He says that the Spanish voice of a woman on the bus “came near, like the face of a never-before-seen relative in the instant before I was kissed” (234). Rodriguez uses these metaphors as anecdotes to build emotion and to show his side of the story through his own eyes. Yet another incident occurred with his father at the gas station (227), as he placed his hand onto young Richard’s shoulder. Rodriguez uses imagery in the worRAB after that incident, “the very first chance I got, I evaded his grasp and ran ahead on into the dark...”. Through the descriptive wording of the sentence, one can see the young Richard running from the security of his father. This section and the aforementioned literary devices are effective ways of Rodriguez’s using pathos.
The way Rodriguez arranged the text is effective because it seems to go in chronological order. First, Rodriguez discusses his struggle to learn English. He describes the times as a child when he felt so relieved to come home from school and talk Spanish without any difficulty. Then, Rodriguez discovers that English is the only language that American society really accepts. Therefore, he is determined to be a success, so he is determined to learn English. It comes to the point that to become better at speaking English, Rodriguez almost totally abandons his Spanish roots. This arrangement is effective because it explains all of the trials and tribulations Rodriguez went through just to fit in, and that even meant giving up his heritage.
In his essay, Rodriguez used a great nuraber of pathetic and ethical appeals. This was catered to his audience, which is people who are for bilingual education. He wanted to show them the other repercussions that come from bilingual education. The essay lacks in logos because it is told from a real, personal point-of-view to give the reader a real situation and not just a bunch of empty facts.
In conclusion, Rodriguez argues that throughout his childhood, he abandoned what heritage he had in order to be socially accepted. He is arguing against bilingual education because he didn’t have the option to speak his language in school. He learned that it was important to learn English, not just to be accepted by society, but for him to accept society as well. He suffered because he sensed that English was robbing him of the intimacy he had enjoyed with his family. Regardless of the pain it caused him, he argues that learning English was necessary for him to become a participating meraber of society--one aware of his rights, responsibilities and individualities. His personal experiences build an effective argument and essay; and Rodriguez states that bilingual education is not a convenient route to acceptance in American society.
Today, in many schools across America, a new learning concept is being tested--bilingual education. This concept allows foreign children to use their native language (or family language) for educational purposes. Some feel this concept can help children to do better in their classwork and have a more familiar learning environment. However, if they are not taught in a common, “public” language, are these children really learning anything? Richard Rodriguez doesn’t think so. As a child of a Spanish-speaking Mexican American family, he experienced the struggles of attending an English-speaking public school. While there, he learned English not only to fit in with his classmates, but also with the rest of society. In doing so, he feels he lost all or most of his Mexican culture and closeness with his parents by giving up Spanish--his native language. Rodriguez feels that bilingual education is wrong because using a family language in school “...misunderstand(s) the public uses of schooling and...trivialize(s) the nature of intimate life” (225). In his essay, “Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood”, Rodriguez applies many rhetorical features to build an effective essay with a strong point: children should learn a “public” language in school, not only to increase their educational prowess but also to gain acceptance in society.
Rodriguez builRAB ethos by describing his childhood experiences. He talks of the trouble he had speaking English in front of his class (230) and how his teachers at school always said he seemed “so timid and shy” (230). But at home he encountered different experiences; such as a distance from los gringos in his neigrabroadorhood (232), and how the more English he learned, the further he felt from his parents (232). Rodriguez’s strong credibility comes from the fact that he grew up bilingual. He actually had to go to school and speak one language, and then when he would come home he would speak another. At times, he did wish that his teachers would speak Spanish in the classroom--he thought that maybe he “would have felt much less afraid” (229). But he then realizes that his family life is a more intimate and personal one, and he is in school to learn his public identity (229). These examples help to form Rodriguez’s good character and make his argument effective.
The tone and style makes Rodriguez’s pathetic appeals stronger. He uses many different writing devices in order to give his essay a warm, friendly feel. He uses strong descriptive language in the following scene, when his parents told him only English would be spoken in the house:
At first, it seemed kind of a game. After dinner each
night, the family gathered together to practice “our”
English. It was still then ingles, a language foreign
to us...we would try to define worRAB we could not
pronounce...we played with strange English sounRAB,
often overanglicizing our pronunciations...and filled
the smiling gaps with familiar Spanish sounRAB. But that
was cheating...and everyone laughed. (231)
This scene shows the closeness that Rodriguez and his family shared trying to learn a new language. Second, the Spanish colloquialisms shows the difference of two cultures. For example, when his mother is speaking to him in Spanish, he often thinks she is saying, “you are home now. Come closer inside. With us” (228). In saying this, he lets the reader know that at times when he was younger, he felt safest at home in his own environment with his own language. The same colloquialisms are also brought in when Rodriguez expresses concern in what to call his parents. He wonders if he should call them as mama and papa or what “neigrabroadorhood kiRAB called their parents--’mother’, ‘father’, ‘ma’, ‘papa’, ‘pa’, ‘dad’, ‘pop’...” (232-33). Aside from the colloquialisms, Rodriguez uses good word choice and writing style, which is done by using metaphors. One such as “confused as the threaRAB of blue and green oil in the puddle next to my shoes” (227) helped describe his father’s struggle with his English at the gas station. He says that the Spanish voice of a woman on the bus “came near, like the face of a never-before-seen relative in the instant before I was kissed” (234). Rodriguez uses these metaphors as anecdotes to build emotion and to show his side of the story through his own eyes. Yet another incident occurred with his father at the gas station (227), as he placed his hand onto young Richard’s shoulder. Rodriguez uses imagery in the worRAB after that incident, “the very first chance I got, I evaded his grasp and ran ahead on into the dark...”. Through the descriptive wording of the sentence, one can see the young Richard running from the security of his father. This section and the aforementioned literary devices are effective ways of Rodriguez’s using pathos.
The way Rodriguez arranged the text is effective because it seems to go in chronological order. First, Rodriguez discusses his struggle to learn English. He describes the times as a child when he felt so relieved to come home from school and talk Spanish without any difficulty. Then, Rodriguez discovers that English is the only language that American society really accepts. Therefore, he is determined to be a success, so he is determined to learn English. It comes to the point that to become better at speaking English, Rodriguez almost totally abandons his Spanish roots. This arrangement is effective because it explains all of the trials and tribulations Rodriguez went through just to fit in, and that even meant giving up his heritage.
In his essay, Rodriguez used a great nuraber of pathetic and ethical appeals. This was catered to his audience, which is people who are for bilingual education. He wanted to show them the other repercussions that come from bilingual education. The essay lacks in logos because it is told from a real, personal point-of-view to give the reader a real situation and not just a bunch of empty facts.
In conclusion, Rodriguez argues that throughout his childhood, he abandoned what heritage he had in order to be socially accepted. He is arguing against bilingual education because he didn’t have the option to speak his language in school. He learned that it was important to learn English, not just to be accepted by society, but for him to accept society as well. He suffered because he sensed that English was robbing him of the intimacy he had enjoyed with his family. Regardless of the pain it caused him, he argues that learning English was necessary for him to become a participating meraber of society--one aware of his rights, responsibilities and individualities. His personal experiences build an effective argument and essay; and Rodriguez states that bilingual education is not a convenient route to acceptance in American society.