Analysis Of Richard Rodriguez 'A Memoir Of A Bilingual Childhood'

Opinion Editorial By Hassan Abdi In the article written by Richard Rodriguez, Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood, he conveys an opinion that Bilingual education doesn’t work. He conveys it through his personal experience. Published by the Phi Beta Kappa to the American Society in 1981, the audience and his message are a broad and important now as it was thirty five years ago. As the amount of children that don’t speak English as their first language continue to rise, bilingual education has become a polarizing topic like most things, and for me, I am neutral on the topic. A form of bilingual education has failed me, but, for most students it benefits in the long term, and it 's not right to dispel one side of the topic to push your own

Learning English, Richard lost his connection to his family, and his heritage by losing how to speak Spanish, the language of his family, by learning English. He writes “My mother! My father! After English became my primary language, I no longer knew what words to use in addressing my parents. The old Spanish words (those tender accents of sound) I had earlier used - mamá and papá - I couldn 't use any more” (32). I do believe, learning English, in a bad form of bilingual education will make you lose the sense with you other language, too. I know that because that happened to me. I was born in Kenya even though I was Somalian, I knew Swahili, when I came here, and within 5 years I forgot everything I knew, in those same five years I was becoming more fluent in English. In a proper setting, though that wouldn’t have happened, because evidence has shown that it suppose to make you more fluent in your own language as that 's how you would transition into