Analysis Of Aria By Richard Rodriguez

Richard Rodriguez, in the chapter in which the quote can be found, titled "Aria", writes repeatedly about the importance of intimacy with public and private language. Rodriguez mentions that intimacy can only be achieved in his life through the one language that he feels as if was a sort of secret one, Spanish. In my opinion, this quote bounces off a highly profound meaning. The reason why I say this is because I find it majorly interesting, the way that Richard Rodriguez sees the opinion of other people about mixing public life with private language; in other words using the language that transmits intimacy in a public place surrounded by people who speak other language that does not transmit anything close to intimacy. I find myself to be …show more content…
I can describe myself as someone that is similar to Richard Rodriguez. I am bilingual, but usually, do not like to use the language spoken by my family in my public life. The problem is the following, Rodriguez is surrounded by people who speak the language of the country (the public language), so he is forced by society's pressure to speak nothing more than that language. To Richard Rodriguez, English (the public language) means nothing more than that language he has to use in order to get through everyday life. However, Spanish is not the same to him; Spanish is, in general, the one thing that reminds of home. This language is the one thing that Richard can feel comfortable with, and the one thing that makes him feel like he can be himself.

Richard Rodriguez uses this quote in the chapter titled "The Achievement of Desire" of the book "The Hunger of Memory". When he uses this quote, Richard Rodriguez is telling the reader …show more content…
Richard Rodriguez went on to explain that his disagreement with the beliefs of the educators come from his awareness of the necessity of children to assimilate into public society. Just like the quote showed above says, although pain and suffering can come if children assimilate into public society, it really is just a minor downfall, because, in the big run, assimilation can get you the most important thing which is full public individuality. One does not just live isolated from society by following the movement of never assimilating to the place you live in. In my opinion, if you will be living in a place for a long time, might as well achieve full public individuality, so at least you can become someone in society. For all the meaning that the quote has behind, I find it to be profoundly enlightening, and as a matter of fact, the quote itself makes you think about a lot of things. Without any doubt, I fully agree with Richard Rodriguez's say on this topic about bilingual education, because everything he says is true. Although assimilating to a new place can be hard, and have some negative effects in your life, in the end, the benefits that integrating into society can give a person, outrun the bad