Richard Rodriguez- "Aria"
Connections
This piece title "Aria" by Richard Rodriguez is one that connections to a lot of the texts that we have been reading in class, but one I really connect it with is "The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People's Children" by Lisa Delpit. I connect it with this piece because the Delpit piece is all about the culture of power and how we need to help those that are not part of the culture of power join it. However, "Aria" is the first person perspective of someone joining the culture of power and how that culture in a way erased what their old culture had meant to him and his family, almost completely removing his father's interactions with him, due to a new cultural barrier. One quote from this text I find very powerful reads, "At last, seven years old, I came to believe what had been technically true since my birth: I was an American citizen". (Rodriguez 36) In this quote we see how the narrator finally feels apart of the society he lives in, but one is directly brought to think "at what cost?". Following this he mentions how his family, becoming more American lost something, "But the special feeling of closeness at home was diminished by then". (Rodriguez 36) He no longer has his "secret language" at home that mad his family close, and it seems to be kind of a shock to him. In the end it is clear that Delpit is right and the culture of power needs to be taught, but what this article is saying is that the previous culture of the personally newly introduced should not be completely erased, and there should be something left to fortify it.
Being from an inner city, growing up I was friends with a lot of ESL students and I decided after reading this article to do a little bit of research into ESL in the U.S. and I found this site that had just a little bit of number information on ESL students. This is a very large number and it makes me curious how many of their stories will match the Rodriguez piece.
i agree, since the culture of power speaks english, students are obligated to learn english in order to be succesful with their academics. thus, may cause interfierence with their native language and that can cause interfierence with communicating with their parents
ReplyDeleteI agree the culture of power made him learn another language to become his primary language, so it took away his communication with his power. The nuns don't realize the power they had over him to just erase his old culture that he had with his family like you said.
ReplyDeletethis is a late comment but i was just realizing i didn't do my first comments. But i read your post and it was interesting. a post that i agree with, its true that culture of power made him agree to learn another language however they should of never stole his own culture right from under him. this was a gain in the long run but also a lost as well because he was not able to have his own culture any longer. :/
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