Reflection On Bilingualism

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What exactly is bilingualism? Is bilingualism speaking two or more languages? Does it have to do something with culture? Are there different ways to define bilingualism? There are different ideas on what bilingualism is from different people. These people are Martin Espada and Richard Rodriguez. Espada believes bilingualism as having the right to speak a language and believe a culture the way they want to. On the other hand, Rodriguez believes that we must speak the public language, like everyone else. I believe that bilingualism is the free will to speak a language and maintain a culture that you would like.
Espada sees that being bilingual should be your identity and being passionate about your culture. He had made some claims about how …show more content…

Personally, I believe that bilingualism is to freely speak any language you want, have any culture you believe is right for you, and also to treat people equally. I can see how Espada wants the American community to accept people of a different ethnicity for there to be equality, and I could relate. I’ve had personal experiences growing up, a community not accepting my family’s ethnicity, and I would just feel mad. But, I can also understand what Rodriguez said about adapting to a new community, I had to deal with that too when I had to adapt to school. From my own perspective, I’ve never really thought about how much I changed my lifestyle because of bilingualism. As I grew up, I started to forget the Vietnamese language, I stopped dressing up in traditional clothing for holidays, I even stopped getting durian cake for my birthday as well. Thinking back to when I was when I was little, I would love to do all the traditional things that we would do on the holidays and celebrations, now over the years it has changed. I thought more about how I have lost my culture over the years, I have always wanted to get it back, and when I heard the stories about bilingualism and how some people lost their own culture, it made me want to go back to my own even more. Now I’m trying to relearn Vietnamese, eat more of the old traditional food, and I am willing to try to karaoke with my family

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