Aria Memoir Of A Bilingual Childhood Analysis

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Richard Rodriguez, in his “Aria, Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood”, uses imagery to illustrate the major changes in his personal and social life. He does that by telling us a story on how his parents decided that Richard should speak in English more; they had him talk in English at home, because the nuns told his parents that he was uncomfortable in school. The purpose of this passage was to show us that because of what had happened during that talk between nuns and parents changed most of his life. It all happened on some Saturday morning when Rodriguez states that 3 nuns arrived at his house to talk to his parents about the language that Richard and his siblings use at home.
One of the nuns asked his mother, “Do your children speak only …show more content…

Since Richard’s family did use, for the most part at least, mostly Spanish at home, the nuns decided to ask his parents if they could make their children speak English at home to help them get over their shyness and others reasons they were uncomfortable in school. “Is it possible for you and your husband to encourage your children to practice their English when they are at home?” Of course, the Rodriguez parents complied. This was a turning point in Richard’s life; his parents couldn’t argue with the Church's representatives, and at that time, his parents probably couldn’t even understand yet the importance of continuing to speak their native language at home. After a while, this mistake led to Richard totally forgetting Spanish, completely ruining his personal home life.
After this conversation, right after the nuns left, the change was made. His parents made him speak to them in English at home, which he states later in his passage that he totally hated it. He couldn’t argue, so over time he got used to it. This change helped Richard in school a lot; his social life was completely changed; he wasn’t a ghost that walked around school without being able to understand anything anymore. Now, he could make friends and participate in school and in all the activities, but at the same time, the better his English got, the worse his native language became,

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