After reading “Aria” by Richard Rodriguez, I really had to think. I had no idea that when people learn English and leave their other language, that a person could feel this way. I’ve never spoke any language other than English, and everyone in my family always spoke English at home and everywhere we went so I have never had to experience a loss of who I was. Someone’s identity covers a lot, and one part is their language that they speak. Their first language is what they identify with first. It comforted them; it helped them feel at home. That’s how Richard was when he had to learn English. He felt he was losing a part of his and his family’s identity. The way Richard said that, “I considered Spanish to be a private language”. You could see that he connected with it and nobody ever knew what he was saying to he felt safe in a way, to say what he wanted and only his sister and brother and his parents would understand.
Back when Richard was in school, the schools would just ignore the kids and have them figure it out on their own. They wanted them to just get what’s going on and what’s expected of them and nobody ever cared about the emotional stuff that goes on in the process of that. Richard didn’t know what to do, or how to feel confident in himself so that’s why he went quiet for about a year. I found a YouTube video that talks about bilingual education in the schools and what’s going on, and why it was started and when it was started.
Hey, I just wanted to say that I used your post as my topic for this week. Thank you so much!!!
ReplyDelete~Brittany~
I love this post.I also don't know what it's like to have English as my second language and I had no idea what it could do to a family. It made me sad to read this story and to find out it's a true story.
ReplyDeleteI agree I never realized learning English could make someone feel like they lost their identity.
ReplyDelete-Anne
It's crazy to think that someone could totally loose their identity because they had to speak a different language. I like when you used the quote about Richard thinking of Spanish as his private language. In certain situations it's definitely true that people use another language to talk in secret and not be understood by others.
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly what I wrote about in my blog. I never understood that one person could lose their identity from speaking a different language. I understand it now, but if I never read this article I would have no idea.
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