Aria by Richard Rodriguez

Aria by Richard Rodriguez

                                                                                        

Quotes:

1.)    “Without question, it would have pleased me to hear my teachers address me in Spanish when I entered the classroom. I would have felt much less afraid. I would have trusted and responded with ease. But I would have delayed—for how long postponed? – having to learn the language of the public society…learning the great lesson of of school, that I had a public identity. Fortunately, my teachers were unsentimental about their responsibility. What they understood was that I needed to speak a public language.”

-Immediately after reading this quote, I thought of Delpit and scribbled “rules & codes” in the margin of the essay. This child's identity is Spanish and that is where he established his identity. However, he had an awareness that he had to learn the public language of society. I read “learning the great lesson of school, that I had a public identity,” as a mildly sarcastic comment that brings attention to teachers in power enforcing a public identity that will lend a child a tool to success in out society. In just the next paragraph Rodriguez says, on the subject of the English language; “and the point was not self-expression alone but to make one-self understood by many others.” So to succeed in “the white man’s world” you need to know the language that is understood by the majority of others. Just as Delpit suggests in her essay, giving a child the tools to do so.

2.)    “Listening to persons who sounded eccentrically pitched voices, I usually noted their sounds for an initial few seconds before I concentrated on what they were saying…Hearing someone’s tone of voice—angry or questioning or sarcastic or happy or sad—I didn't distinguish it from the words it expressed. Sound and word were thus tightly wedded…I was often bemused, always relieved, to realize how ‘silent,’ though crowded with words my day in public had been. This public silence measured and quickened the change in my life.”

-Rodriguez explains his journey from Spanish to English and throughout he emphasizes not only the language and the English words themselves, but the phonics of those words; the tone, the stressed syllables and the emotions behind the words.  These things seemed to be the best part of his Spanish speaking home, he knew just by the tone and sound of words what they were, with English however, it seemed to be entwined together and wasn't as easy for him to feel comfortable with using English in his home.  Here is where he introduces the idea of “silence” which affected both his public identity (as seen in quote above) but also in his private identity, when his father “retired to silence.”

3.)    “They do not seem to realize that there are two ways a person is individualized. So they do not realize that while one suffers a diminished sense of private individuality by becoming assimilated into public society, such assimilation makes possible the achievement of public individuality.”

-To help me work through this final statement,which is a significant one, I drew out little pictures to get a visual.  If I understand this correctly: Unlike Delpit, Rodriguez ‘ theory is that a child can only achieve one identity because the other suffers or is diminished, whereas Delpit says there is room for both.

Question: After reading this, my question for everyone would be, which theory do you support and how can we apply bilingual acceptance into a classroom to support non-English speakers but also teach and provide them the “public identity.” Like, what would be an effective way in doing so? (In the article linked to classroom an ESL teacher gives her experiences in teaching a bilingual classroom, notice paragraph 3.) 

Thanks for Reading! Have a Good Day, 

Nicole (: