"Coming from a home in which mostly Spanish was spoken, for example, I had to decide to forget spanish when I began my education."
When I read this sentence, I thought to myself this is wrong. This has nothing to do with the sentence structure, the grammar, or anything along those lines. The problem I have with this sentence is that to me when you learn a new language or become accustomed to a new culture you should never forget your past. You should never forget where you come from. Rodriguez came from a place where spanish was the first language spoken and now he had came to America where english is the first language. There is no reason why he should forget his past. Just because he came here to learn a whole new lifestyle and culture doesn't mean he can't do anything from his past culture. I know a lot of people from where I live that moved from spanish speaking countries to my hometown and they pursued the spanish electives that my school had to offer. They also speak to there parents in spanish and eat a lot of spanish culture foods. Rodriguez says he never totally forgot spanish, but when he heard spanish walking down the streets it reminded him "of a community he was once apart of". I think that he should feel the opposite way. He should feel that he still belongs to that community because he can talk in the same language they can. Put it this way, if I was walking down the street and heard a bunch of people talking in spanish, I would feel no relation to them and no sense of belonging. However, if a guy like Rodriguez is walking down the street and he hears people talking in spanish he should feel welcome and have a great sense of belonging. He shouldn't feel like he used to be apart of that community or used to fit in with them. He should feel comfortable that people are speaking his first language. How do you feel when people around you are talking in a different language? I know that I don't feel comfortable. They could be saying something terrible about you and you will never know. However, if you know what they are saying you should be comfortable with them around you. Overall, my reason for picking this sentence for my blog is that Rodriguez should never forget where he came from and should always feel comfortable with a spanish background.
Josh, I completely agree with you that it was foolish of the author to abandon his spanish speaking roots. I even wrote about this myself in my own blog. Choosing to abandon his spanish speaking roots lead to problems when it came time for family visits with his spanish relatives. He gave up trying to learn spanish at the cost of never being able to speak and conversate with his loved ones. If he kept trying to learn spanish at the same time as English his childhood would have been very different; probably for the better because he would have been able to communicate with his loved ones on all his family visits instead of just being a speechless bystander.
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