Aria Talking Points

When I began reading this piece, I thought that it was going to be very straight-forward and easy to get through. It was only a few pages, and it was written as a personal story, which I tend to find more enjoyable and informative. And although it WAS an easy piece for me to read, I was left with a few questions. The narrator of this story said several times that he was glad his teachers did not want him to keep speaking Spanish, even though he was uncomfortable and intimidated by the English language. However, he then goes on to express how he still longs to speak Spanish, and how speaking English in his home separated his family and made them become very distant from one another. It just seemed very contradictory, and if his point as the author was that children who do not know English should be forced to give up the language they know and speak at home so they can learn English quicker, I do not agree at all.

When Rodriquez is describing the time some Nuns from his school come to talk with his parents, he says: "With great tact the visitors continued, 'Is it possible for you and your husband
to encourage your children to practice their English when they are home?' Of course, my parents complied. What would they not do for their children's well-being? And how could they have questioned the Church's authority which those women represented? In an instant, they agreed to give up the language (the sounds) that had revealed and accentuated our family's closeness. The moment after the visitors left, the change was observed. 'Allora, speak to us en ingles,' my father and mother united to tell us." The tone is this paragraph sounds, at least to me, sarcastic and resentful. It sounds to me like he was and might still be angry at his parents for abandoning their culture and therefor sacrificing their closeness as a family. Did anyone else read it like this or does it mean something completely different?

Another point that I took away from this article was how the author is dissapointed that he lost his "private language", even though he was happy to master English and feel accepted in our American culture. "I would have been happier about my public success had I not sometimes recalled what it had been like earlier, when my family had conveyed its intimacy through a set of conveniently private sounds. Sometimes in public, hearing a stranger, I'd hark back to my past." His sense of longing to be able to have a connection with his family in regards to speaking Spanish makes me really sad. I think that yes, practicing English at home was beneficial, but the children also should have been able to speak Spanish too.

Another point from the article that puzzled me was this: "Because I wrongly imagined that English was intrinsically a public language and Spanish an intrinsically private one, I easily noted the difference between classroom language and the language of home. At school, words were directed
to a general audience of listeners. ('Boys and girls.') Words were meaningfully ordered. And the point was not self-expression alone but to make oneself understood by many others." Is the author saying that, by speaking English at home, his classroom language and language at home became the same thing? If so, I think it is important to have a seperate dialog from school and home.