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A memorable christmas narrative essay
A christmas story essay
A christmas story essay
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Rodriguez completes his book with this Christmas narrative to show that trying to move forward without looking back can drive families apart.
When Rodriguez was a child, he found intimacy in his family’s language. He segregated the people around him based on what language they were speaking, whether it was el gringo’s English or the intimacy of Spanish. He refused to speak English at first, because he “wrongly imagined that English was intrinsically a public language and Spanish an intrinsically private one,”(19) the reason being that his parents were extremely private people and that he assumed his parents’ language was what made them private. He only learned to speak English because his parents and teachers forced him to.
Once he “grew
fluent in English, I could no longer speak Spanish with confidence.” (28) He stopped being able to communicate well and intimately with his parents. By the time Rodriguez is an adult he almost never speaks to his parents. He had chosen to write an autobiography, which would make public what should be kept private in his parents’ eyes. He could “well imagine their faces tightened by incomprehension as they read my words,” knowing that they would not approve, but they wouldn’t have the power to stop him, During Christmastime, a time of familial intimacy, Rodriguez’s father says little to nothing to him. His father “asks if I am going home now too. It is I realize, the only thing he has said to me all evening.” (212) Rodriguez doesn’t connect with his parents anymore. He has distanced himself from them, becoming someone that they could never understand. He has move too far forward to be able to look back and connect with his parents.
The story “Public and Private Language” was written by Richard Rodriguez. He is an American writer and a journalist with many of his publications widely known to the public. He is known for Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez, one of the best written creations throughout his career, which resulted him to grow a substantial amount of supporters, even today. In this story, I am well pleased that Rodriguez has written a memento in which many of the Latinx community could well relate to. Overall I concur with this story based on the fact that there may be two different identities a Latinx person could have throughout their life and that having a public identity could mean more achievements made. However I don’t believe that the more Americanization means the decrease of bonding with your family, finding this statement absurd.
Gloria Anzaldua, wrote the essay “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” communicating and describing her adolescence in a society brimming with sexism, cultural imperialism, racism, low self-esteem, and identity formation. The reason one comes to America is to finer themselves academically, and intellectually. One must learn to speak English to live among the American’s, because that is the language they speak. Though, no one has the right to deprive you of your familiar tongue. At a young age, Anzaldua was scolded, even mistreated for speaking her native “Chicano” tongue. Anzaldúa described this ignorance, cruelty, and discrimination when she states: “I remember being caught speaking Spanish at recess – that was good for three licks on the knuckles with a sharp ruler.” She overcomes this hostility throughout her life.
Rodriguez views the same as a public and private language. He explains that the term “private” relates to Spanish language, while the term “public” is the kind of English language he speaks outside home. As he writes “… I wrongly imagined that English was intrinsically a public language and Spanish an intrinsically private one…” (513). In addition, Rodriguez’s reference to the English language as a gringo sound gives an impression of a child’s resentment towards said language. The term gringo in Spanish means los gringos which is a “derogatory term for English-speaking Americans” (512). When Rodriguez parents stopped communicating at home in Spanish, the laughter at home faded along with his private language. This further supports Rodriguez’s statement that “… as we learned more and more English, we shared fewer and fewer words with our parents” (515). Thus the end of a once full of laughter home, yet the beginning of Rodriguez’s mastery of the English language. Similar to Tan’s experience, the writer’s rebellious nature challenged her critics by proving that Asian’s skills are not limited to Math and Science. Thus, the decision behind to shift from pre-med to English major. As Tan writes, “I happen to be rebellious in nature and enjoy the challenge of disproving assumptions made about me” (510). Hence Tan’s strong conviction to resist the convention of
As a young child, Rodriguez finds comfort and safety in his noisy home full of Spanish sounds. Spanish, is his family's' intimate language that comforts Rodriguez by surrounding him in a web built by the family love and security which is conveyed using the Spanish language. "I recognize you as someone close, like no one outside. You belong with us, in the family, Ricardo.? When the nuns came to the Rodriquez?s house one Saturday morning, the nuns informed the parents that it would be best if they spoke English. Torn with a new since of confusion, his home is turned upside down. His sacred family language, now banished from the home, transforms his web into isolation from his parents. "There was a new silence in the home.? Rodriguez is resentful that it is quiet at the dinner table, or that he can't communicate with his parents about his day as clearly as before. He is heartbroken when he overhears his mother and father speaking Spanish together but suddenly stop when they see Rodriguez. Thi...
Anzaldua grew up in the United States but spoke mostly Spanish, however, her essay discusses how the elements of language began to define her identity and culture. She was living in an English speaking environment, but was not White. She describes the difficulty of straddling the delicate changing language of Chicano Spanish. Chicano Spanish can even differ from state to state; these variations as well as and the whole Chicano language, is considered a lesser form of Spanish, which is where Anzaldua has a problem. The language a person speaks is a part...
Throughout Richards early childhood development he quickly understood that in order to succeed in America he would have to learn to confidently speak in English. Richard is Hispanic American and although he was born in America, Spanish was the only language that he was exposed to as a young child. He grew up in a home where Spanish flowed freely, but he soon realized outside of his home the language that he primarily knew was foreign. His parents spoke fluent Spanish along with all of his relatives. The brief encounters he experienced of his parents speaking English were only in public places and the proficiency was very poor. Rodriguez’s home was as a safety net for him and his Spanish speaking family with they are his only real connections to the outside world. It wasn’t until Richards encounter with his teachers that he and his family was heavily impressed on the importance of developing a public language. After the encouragement of the visit home from a teacher as a family
Rodrigue’z change from Spanish to English is one of the leading factors to his strong beliefs in assimilation. He feels that assimilation is necessary for immigrants to be part of society and to be successful in the USA. Undoubtedly, this had a negative and a positive effect on him and his family. To begin with, growing up Hispanic in America was a big struggle for Richard Rodriguez. He began his schooling in Sacramento, California knowing less than fifty English words. Rodriguez not only faced the obstacle of mastering the English language, but also that of fitting socially into a classroom of wealthy white children. As a result of being the son of working-class parents, both Mexican immigrants, Rodriguez felt a socially disadvantage...
Richard Rodriguez offers an alternate yet equally profound truth: While our heritage and culture may remain forever tied to and expressed in our native or "home" language, only through the dominant language of our country (English in most cases) can we achieve a place in society that gives us a feeling that we belong amongst everyone else. The only way we can truly become a part of our community and fit in is to dominate the current spoken language. In the United States, the dominant language is Standard English. In this excerpt from "Aria," a chapter in his autobiography entitled "Hunger of Memory": The Education of Richard Rodriguez, Rodriguez discusses public and private languages, and agrees that his achievements in English separated him from his Spanish family and culture but also brought him "the belief, the calming assurance that [he] belonged in public." We as human beings want to feel we belong. We search for that place in society where we are most comfortable all our lives. One should consider the benefits of mastering the dominant language of the society they live in, but should also take into account the harm of taking your native language for granted. I will attempt to explore both of these considerations and examine Rodriguez place in life now, by stating the facts of who is now by the childhood decisions that were made.
In the essay “Private Language, Public Language” by Richard Rodriguez he made a comparison between public and private language. I believe he made this comparison because of the battle between their family and public languages. Rodriguez grew up in an immigrant family, and depending on the location they were staying in, they had a hard time using the different languages they had to speak at home and in society. In their lives they had two forms a language, the private language only spoken with the family and the public language with people outside the family. Rodriguez struggles to overcome the difference between his home language, Spanish and English. The purpose in this distinction is to illustrate the struggle with the different types of languages that the author had to adapt to in his childhood.
In the article, “Public and Private Language”, Richard Rodriguez argues that bilingual education delays learning a “public language” and developing a public identity”. I can relate to Richard’s story because my family and me moved to America when I was young and we also had the same struggle learning a new language. I agreed with Rodriguez when he expressed that he didn’t feel like a true American until he mastered the English language because English is the first and main language in America.
According to Anzaldua, “ Chicano Spanish is considered by the purist and by most Latinos deficient, a mutilation of Spanish”(Anzaldua 32). The Chicano Spanish versus Spanish conflict that occurs in Latino society is a prime example of people considering themselves to be right in a situation where there is not a right answer. The Latino’s who speak Spanish that they believe to be normal are disturbed by the Spanish language changing. They believe that their own views are being challenged, they believe that they are correct, and they believe that anyone who challenges their views is inferior. The people who view all other views are, in reality, just trying to make themselves look more powerful. Like in Tan’s essay, people demeaned others in order to promote their own views, therefore, gaining power over the others who they demeaned. According to Tan, “ She said they would not give her any more information(...) And when the doctor finally called her daughter, me, who spoke in perfect english-- lo and behold-- we had assurances the CAT scan would be found”(Tan 2). The doctors treated Tan’s mother differently due to her use of what they considered “broken language”, leading to her being treated inadequately. People have an image of what they consider to be the right English, anyone who does not speak the right English is usually considered to be uneducated. In both Tan’s and Anzaldua’s essays, the lack of open-mindedness is one of the reasons that people want to become more powerful than others. People fail to realize that what they believe in is not always the right answer, like with stereotypes, the people are trying to gain power over others in order to make themselves seem more
Another struggle for identity with Latinos is their struggle with the Spanish and English languages. While some Latinos may speak Spanish in their homes, the language may not be conversationally used in their schools. Some Lat...
My parents decided to immigrate to the United States when I was six years of age. As we established ourselves in the United States, my first language was only Spanish. Spanish was the language that I was taught at home, and it was the only language to be spoken at home. Rodriguez describes when he first entered his classroom where he was introduced to a formal English-speaking context, writing that, ?I remember to start with that day in Sacramento-a California now nearly thirty years past-when I first entered a classroom, able to understa...
The book “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens. This tells how a man who sees Christmas and Christmas spirit as a waste of time comes to love christmas and find joy in life. Over all I think Charles Dickens wants to tell us that it’s never too late to change yourself.
Christmas is the most popular holiday in all of the land. Mostly everyone loves Christmas. There are three categories of Christmas people. Number one; the haters. They despise Christmas and think it is the devil and nothing good comes from lying to children and giving gifts for absolutely no reason at all. Number two; the average person. The ones who just buy the gifts, wear the holiday sweaters, and go to the annual Christmas gathering at Grandma’s where gifts and laughs are exchanged. Number three; the die hard Santa’s of the group. The few mothers or fathers who decorate the day after Halloween to get into the Christmas spirit. The tree is up on November first and the Christmas lights are hung all year round. They make sure to go black friday shopping to get everyone a gift, even cousin Nicholas, who is three times removed. Christmas is