Hunger Of Unlike Espada, By Richard Rodriguez

Although there is not a clear thesis statement that is able to outline his argument it is more than obvious that he is arguing against bilingual education. Most paragraphs in essay relate to the argument that he was presenting which was although bilingual education important it in some ways hinders a child's ability to develop a sense of identity. At some point of the essay Rodriguez isn't able to transition well. For example he was first contradicting the opinion of bilingual education by saying “considered Spanish to be a private language” as a “socially disadvantaged child” He then just supported his own thoughts and ideas by continuing to tell the reader how much he was suffering.

Mr. Rodriguez quit his job at the People’s Tribune at the age of 39 to dedicate his life to writing and promoting his books. All of Luis Rodriguez’ books have the same overall theme, morality and reality. He wants his writing to portray his own imagination and truths that he grew up around. He traveled all over the world as a known author and poet in Rome, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Milan, Holland, Austria, Germany, Nicaragua, and

Castro, Ph.D, the author of this article, has effectively used and appeal to the readers emotions, a mass of reasoning and logic using statistics, data, and and personal experiences to get his point across. He conveyed the message that Spanish is threatened in the United States due to many reasons. Even as a non-native Spanish speaker I can see the value of keeping your ancestral language alive. I can’t imagine losing English, my native language in the future or how it would affect my culture and heritage. In the future I can see this author being successful as they know how to write based on their audience.

The first work of writing to be examined is Richard Rodriguez’s hunger of memory, a powerful and resonating book written to reveal the internal struggles that Rodriguez faced for being a son of Mexican immigrants. Moreover, in his autobiographical narrative he reveals that from a young age his life became plagued by discrimination and felt the blunt end of cultural disparity between his home and the outside world. Although he was noted for his writing abilities from a young age, nuns at the catholic school that he attended urged his parents to stop speaking spanish in the house in order to encourage Rodriguez's english skills. Imagery is used to describe the los braceros, who are the hard working Mexican men that are negatively portrayed in the story by Rodriguez. Despite the negative portrayal of the los braceros, Rodriguez watched them with a certain fascination even going as far as telling

Throughout his text, he explains that he felt uncomfortable at school knowing he would have to speak this language that didn't connect to his identity. A significant quote from his text is “At last, seven years old, I came to believe what had been technically true since my birth; I was an American citizen (Rodriguez 120-122).” This quote means that after having to learn English and somewhat feeling secure with it, he imagined the truth of being American. Another important selection that stands out to me is “But the special feeling of closeness at home was diminished by then (Rodriguez 123-125).” The reason why this quote is so important is given the fact once he felt further comfortable with English, he lost that connection with his family through Spanish.

Rodriguez uses courage as tone in a way by using his personal story of how he contributes to the class and how it motivated him to speak out in public. “One day in school I raised my hand to volunteer an answer... And I did not think it remarkable when the entire class understood.” According to this quote we can read how impressed he felt about himself speaking out to the class and amazed of how his classmates were able to understand him. Since Rodriguez was able to speak in class without being timid it gives him the courage and the power to express himself in public.

This was best shown when Espada says, "Defending the right of Latinos to use their tongue of their history and identity creates in me a passion for Spanish itself” the best way for me to maintain Spanish is to fight for the right to speak Spanish. ”(Espada 18-20) He emphasizes how the English-only movement negatively affects them and is undesirable. It gave him the opportunity to bring together their community and to advocate for the history and culture behind Spanish. He follows up with this by saying “the best way for me to maintain my Spanish is to fight for the right to speak Spanish.”

Rodriguez stated in the first portion of his essay, “Proudly I announced that a teacher had said I was losing all trace of my Spanish accent.” He wanted to be more like his teachers and less like his parents. People started to tell him, “Your parents must be so proud!”, and all he could do was smile awkwardly. This is one of the first moments in the essay where you get the sense of Rodriguez’s conflicted feelings. He knew that his parents didn’t really understand all of his awards and they didn’t understand his obsession with knowledge and authority that he’s teachers possessed.

Espada shares his enthusiasm towards fighting for Spanish, “Defending the right of all Latinos to [speak Spanish]... creates in me a passion towards Spanish itself,” (18-20). Alike Espada, I believe that language is a right, and speakers of non-English languages should have the freedom to speak in a comfortable environment. I also believe that such tolerance is a stride towards making America a better, more united place. Rodriguez suffers from the lack of accommodation for him to maintain his native language while also learning English. After the public language seeps into his own home, Rodriguez tells of how he was affected.

In this article, Author Gloria Anzaldua writes about growing up in America as a Mexican-American and the struggles that she faced due to the language barrier. Gloria claims that she grew up around a variety of different forms of both Spanish and English, “Standard English, working class/slang English, standard Spanish, Standard Mexican Spanish, and North Mexican Spanish dialect”, are just a few. The language spoken, or combinations of the languages correlate with where the Hispanic person was originally from and where in the U.S. they are now, for example, “Chicano Spanish” is spoken in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. Another focus of this article is how Gloria would be punished in school for speaking in her native tongue and then at home by her for not speaking English properly. Gloria also felt the university she attended made the Hispanics take two speech classes, “in order to get rid of our accents”, she claims.

People of this culture are divided into places where there are other people of their kind. Schools in the area have rules for these people, “don't speak spanish,

He supports this argument by telling his own story of being forced to learn English by the bilingual education system. The experience he had learning English made him experience great embarrassment, sadness, and change. Rodriguez concludes his experience by discussing how English had changed his personal life at home: “We remained a loving family, but one greatly changed. No longer so close;no longer bound tight by the pleasing and troubling knowledge of our public separateness.” By learning English, Rodriguez’s family is finally able to integrate into society without language barriers.

Rodriguez would speak English in school because to him it was a “public language”, while Spanish was a “private language” (72). Rodriguez

Rodriguez spoke about how his mother was often times discriminated against by white people because of the fact that she looked Mexican. She and her children were at a park wanted to sit at a table that was previously occupied by a white woman, and when the white woman came back and saw Rodriguez’s mother sitting at the table she demanded that she move, but since Rodriguez’s mother did not speak English the white woman immediately exclaimed “Go back to your country!”. Rodriguez’s mother didn’t have the privilege of knowing English, but the not all states have English as their official language. In the US the official languages are Spanish, French and

"Hunger of Memory" by Richard Rodriguez is a controversial publication that is likely to bring about an intense debate especially among US Latinos. Rodriguez exposes the vital social and political issues with significant reference to his life through this esthetically exquisite book. The experiences relate to an event in the past when he was compelled to change the language he speaks from Spanish to English when he commenced his schooling life. It also exposes how he clashed with affirmative action agendas. The book is more of an autobiography that narrates Richard Rodriguez's upcoming in America.