Summary Of SWE By Richard Rodriguez

Rodriguez mother soon came to the realization that her son had formed this superior mindset due his education. “She complained that our “big ideas” were going to our heads. More acute was her complaint that the family wasn't close anymore.”(R346) The reason she felt as though her family was not close anymore is because of the large education gap between the parents and their children. Rodriguez recalls coming home from Stamford for Christmas break and being “almost grateful for the family crisis that there was much to discuss”(R346) By choosing to focus on his education over his family, Rodriguez lost any connection he had with them. SWE became Rodriguez’s only form of communication, he lost his spanish accent along with the ability to communicate with his parents. He would find himself reading books rather than spending time with …show more content…
And although it is a major and vitally important one, SWE is only one dialect. And it is never, or at least hardly ever, anybody’s only dialect. This is because there are- as you and I both know and yet no one in the Usage Wars ever seems to mention- situations in which faultlessly correct SWE is not the appropriate dialect.” (W411) Had Rodriguez been able to switch between SWE and a more relax spanish influenced dialect, his relationship with his parents would not have been severed. It is this ability that, to know what dialect is appropriate for each situation, allows us to be accepted by others. Wallace gives an example of a similar situation in Authority and American Usage, where a SNOOTlet is bullied and excluded by his elementary school peers because he can not learn how to speak in child slang. His inability to adapt to other dialects causes him to feel rejection, which is the same case for