Journal #6

 Reading Aria Richard Rodriguez’s, “Tongue Tied” article maybe me think loss of “individuality.” Such loss profoundly affects not only the individual but also the family. There are two quotes which demonstrates the loss of identity for a childe working to learning English as a second language. Rodriguez states how after seven years of age she finally came to believe in her identity. An identity that had always been there but because Spanish or any other language aside from English was spoken at home it was determined to make her believe that she was an outsider. As if someone who is not from this country. However, that wasn’t the case. Rodriguez has always been an American citizen and her lack to speak the “public language” made her believe otherwise. Rodriguez demonstrates this sad experience by writing, “At last, for seven years old, I came to believe what had been technically true since my birth. I was an American citizen” (p. 36). I can only imagine how the lack of identity affects students who are trying to learn a second language. I believe it could be difficult. 


Second, I believe that when students are not allowed to practice their home language and are told to speak more English at home creates a huge separation within the family. This too also affects the identity of a child. Rodriguez address this when she writes about how the nuns come to her house and tell her parents to have their children speak more English at home. Even though the family had tried to as they were told, this created separation between child and parents. Sadly, Rodriguez states this phenomenon by writing, “The family’s quiet was partly due to the fact that, as we children learned more and more English, we shared fewer and fewer words with our parents ” (p. 37). This quote stood out to me because it was hard to hear how students were gaining something new like “public language” but were also loosing the interactions and communication with their parents. I believe such loss also affects the student’s “individuality” in all aspects of their life that being in and out of school.

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