Aria- Richard Rodriguez Blog Post

This is a quotes post.


Throughout his piece "Aria", Richard Rodriguez discusses the faults in the way which the education system handled/handles teaching Spanish speaking students and its repercussions.

In his first paragraph, Rodriguez discusses how his English speaking classmates could have become bilingual, learning Spanish or French, easier than he could have entering the school already speaking Spanish. He follows this up stating, "In my case such bilingualism could not have been so quickly achieved. What I did not believe was that i could speak a single public language"(Rodriguez 34). At home he spoke Spanish with his whole family, and that was his identity as a person and then at school he was secluded. His teachers spoke to him solely in English and reprimanded him for not following suit.He uses the term "public language", as he felt that English was the language he was expected to learn at school, yet at home he had an entirely different culture and background focused around the Spanish language, and to him he felt the two were unable to mix and he had to choose one or the other, as at school his Spanish was punished and ridiculed and he was discouraged from using it at all. 

As he went through school and his English did not initially improve, the nuns from his school eventually requested his parents begin to speak English at home, and they complied. Rodriguez discusses how the process started out fun, like a game and eventually became a normal thing. "One Saturday Morning I entered the kitchen where my parents were speaking Spanish. I did not realize that they were talking in Spanish however until, at the moment they saw me, I heard their voices change to speak English" (Rodriguez 35). This moment was incredibly significant as it is the point where the transition to English was fully made in the home, as Rodriguez felt he had lost his Spanish Identity. His parents were converting to try to help make it so that he could progress in his education as his teachers had suggested, but in doing so, by fully cutting off the Spanish language at home, he felt as though he was fully cut off from the Spanish language, and the culture and identity surrounding it. While this worked as the school had hoped, and he began to embrace the English language as his own to be spoken everywhere, including the classroom, it negatively affected Rodriguez as he no longer felt connected to an entire part of his identity. So much so that even his name was changed and he was no longer Rodrigo and rather now Richard. 

He also discusses the other side of the situation, how forcing English upon students at home tears away the identity of the parents as well. Rodriguez uses the example of his father stating, "His children became so accustomed to his silence that, years later, they would speak routinely of his shyness...But my father was not shy, I'd realized, when I watched him speaking with Spanish relatives. Using Spanish, he was quickly effusive" (Rodriguez 37). While the education system affected the way in which Rodriguez as a child formed his views of his identity, it also muted the identity of those around him, including his fully grown father. He was forced to change to accustom to society and the opinion that English is superior and when he struggled with the change, he gave up speaking all together as his surroundings and the identity of those around him and himself began to change and he was not caught up with the change. As well as his personal identity in this new surrounding changed, the way he was viewed and his identity  to others changed as well. He was pushed inside and now viewed as shy, while when placed in a comfortable environment he was able to still embrace his true identity.