Talking Point #2 Rodriguez

Aria
Richard Rodriguez

Authors Argument:
Rodriguez argues that ones self identity can often be altered in the face of adversity. he also argues that ones personally family and traditional lifestyle can be completely changed when one is trying to become a member of the society of power. Rodriguez stresses that a person should keep their individuality no matter how they have to change their lives.

Quotes:

1."In an instant, they agreed to give up the language (the sounds) that had revealed and accentuated our family's closeness."
I picked this quotes because it made me feel sorry. Not just for Rodriguez, but for all people who speak different languages and have to change their tradition to be accepted into the society of power. it's not fair for people to have to change, but it is a reality. It's very diffrent being in the white majority of people, I will never have to change anything in my life to fit in nor will I ever knwo what it is like to give up tradition just to fit in.

2."That day, I moved very far from the disadvantaged child I had been only days earlier. The belief, the calming assurance that I belonged in public, had at last taken hold."
I know Rodriguez is expressing joy in the quote but I looked at the underlying tone of it and thought of how horrible he must have felt prior to that day. Not being able to speak, or hold a conversation, or express his own thoughts just because he wasn't speaking English. Not only does this sadden me it makes me angry at this power that white people seem to have. I guess the questions could go on and on, but I never seem to get an answer that quite fits my question.

3."But the special feeling of closeness at home was diminished by then. Gone was the desperate, urgent, intense feeling of being home; rare was the experience feeling myself individualized by family intimates. 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."
It seems to me that there is a sense of new hope here, but no such great happiness. Rodriguez expresses how much tradition and family mean to him, and by loosing all of it he feels as if he has lost his family in a way. Now they are excepted into "public" because they all can speak English but they have lost the bonds their family shared because they were not excepted.

Questions/Comments:
I really enjoyed reading this, I got a firm sense of what it is like to give up what you think is right to become soemthing you never knew you had to be. Rodriguez shows diffrent sides to this whole situation. He shows what it is not to be able to talk in public because it is not a public language, he shows what it is like to be excited to be able to speak in public finally, and also he expresses what it feels like to loose ones personal identity. I really felt that his family enjoyed changing their language to English by the end but it all went wrong, they felt cast out again. By the end of the story all I coudl think about was, they shouldn't of changed to begin with.