The New Bathroom Policy At English High School Summary

In the poem Language Duel by Rosario Ferre, the speaker conflicts and even despises English. The speaker believes that the Spanish don’t have the same rights because of wars. The speaker portrays this in the following quote. “English and Spanish have been at war since Queen Elizabeth sank the Spanish Armada in 1588. Language carries with it all their fire and power”.

That bilingual speakers must remain strong in the face of adversity. Espada uses the argument, that in the United States, there is hostility toward Spanish speakers and a xenophobia against them. To support his argument he uses examples from his own personal experiences. During a speech, Espada tells of his encounter with a hostile man, who threatened to rip out his tongue for speaking to him in Spanish: “ He can rip out my tongue if he wants. But it won’t work, porque yo hablo Espanol con el corazón” (page 4).

By referencing “the legal duties to educate…children,” the author establishes a sense of responsibility into the reader to help these kids, further promoting bilingual education (Carsen). This message calls out to everyone to make a difference in kids’ lives, and acting otherwise questions one’s morality. The author also includes a message of Baltazar speaking about her dream of graduating high school. This heartwarming bit of the article persuades readers to advocate for bilingual education. Further reading about other children’s struggle in academics due to language barriers underlines the need for that program.

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.”

Written by Gloria Anzaldua, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, is an opinion easy , a retrospection of her past and a story about identity and recognition of a wild tongue. The following is a rhetorical analysis and personal response of this easy . My analysis will be divided into 4 separate parts including intended audience, main claim, purpose and situation. (a) Intended audience : The first thing that anyone who even skims through this easy would notice is Anzaldua’s multi-lingual language use.

Bilinguals in America must bear with unjust persecution by English-only zealots. In Martin Espada’s essay, The New Bathroom Policy at English High School, he conveys bilingualism as the conflict of not completely fitting into one distinct culture and language, but to live with two separate languages and identities, which bilinguals experience oppression due to their differences. Espada’s definition of bilingualism consists of the ability to speak two languages. Espada gives an example of bilingualism: “My friend Jack… explains his bilingualism: ‘English and Spanish are like two dogs I love. English is an obedient dog… Spanish is a disobedient dog.’

My Rhetorical Analysis Language is a part one’s identity and culture, which allows one to communicate with those of the same group, although when spoken to someone of another group, it can cause a language barrier or miscommunication in many different ways. In Gloria Anzaldua’s article, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, which was taken from her book Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, she is trying to inform her readers that her language is what defines her. She began to mention how she was being criticized by both English and Spanish Speakers, although they both make up who she is as a person. Then, she gave convincing personal experiences about how it was to be a Chicana and their different types of languages. Moreover, despite the fact that her language was considered illegitimate, Anzaldua made it clear that she cannot get rid of it until the day she dies, or as she states (on page 26) “Wild tongues can’t be, they can only be cut out.”

About 400 unique non-English languages are spoken in the United States, making it one of the most linguistically diverse countries in the world. Even after almost 450 years since the colonization of America by the British, controversially, an official language has yet to be named. According to Martin Espada, writer of “The New Bathroom Policy at English High School,” the ability to speak native languages in America is a right that should be respected and not infringed upon by English-only policies. Conversely, Richard Rodriguez, author of “Hunger of Memory,” claims that English-only policies are precisely what non-native speakers need to be successful. As Espada and Rodriguez both offer valuable perspectives on the role of language, I believe

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.

Selena Quintanilla’s father once said, “We have to be more Mexican than the Mexicans and more American than the Americans.” In today’s society, many have encountered the challenge of not being able to be who they really are because they fear not being accepted by others, more specifically their culture. But, what happens when an individual is part of two worlds that have just as many rules? Gloria E. Anzaldúa was a Mexican-American writer and poet who made a major contribution to the fields of cultural, feminist, and queer theory. Anzaldúa identifies as a Chicana and speaks different variations of Spanish, some of which she exhibits in her works.

In the essay, “The New Bathroom Policy at English High School”, Espada witnesses the hostile actions thrown to students at school who speak a language other than English. The students have spoken in Spanish to each other and the lunch people overheard them and automatically assumed that the students were talking unpleasant thoughts about them. They told the principal of the school and she agreed to prohibit Spanish at lunchtime. This shows that people don’t have the freedom to be able to speak their second language in public without wondering constantly if there would be any hostile actions towards them. I also believe that people shouldn’t be forced to learn English and they should be able to learn English when they want to.

“It’s the whole environment,” she replied. “All kinds of services are available in Spanish or Spanglish. Sports and after-school activities are conducted in Spanglish. That’s what the kids hear on the radio and in the street.” Until recently, immigrants made learning English a priority.

The term “transgender” is a label that was never used until the mid 1960s. According to history, “Psychiatrist John F. Oliven of Columbia University coined the term transgender in his 1965 reference work Sexual Hygiene and Pathology (“Transgender”)”. When a transgender person desires to be the opposite gender, they may get an invasive surgery to fully transition into their new identity. Multiple transgender people have started to announce the having of the surgery has destroyed their future (Bindel). People have the right to be whatever gender they aspire to be, but transgender people should do public activities and should stay grouped with their biologically assigned sex.

Being bilingual has got many advantages. It has been debated that bilingualism has multiple advantages such as cognitive, cultural, academic benefits as well. Cognitive benefit reveals that being bilingual help to facilitate human brain. People who are bilingual have two language systems which are working simultaneously. These systems don’t create hindrance in individual’s performance and ensure brain’s functioning of both cognitive aspects (Bialystok, 1999).

Language is a direct indicator of power; those who are adept in controlling the language are able to exploit the ignorance of those under them and thus assert their dominance. As demonstrated throughout