Argument: Rodriguez Aria

Argument: In Richard Rodriguez Aria, he talks about his experience in the classroom as a young boy and his thoughts on a bilingual education. At the beginning of his piece I felt that he was looking for a common ground to be accepted. The argument that Rodriguez is trying to make is that people need to find their public identity and that fits into the rules and codes of power but to not lose sight of who you really are.

A moment in the story that truly showed Rodriguez’s argument about public and personal identity was the moment in the article when the nuns from Rodriguez’s school visited his house. It was as if they were crossing the boundary of his public identity into his personal identity. Rodriguez enjoyed being able to speak Spanish at home it was comforting for him after spending the day at school with his public identity. The nuns took that piece of his personal identity away when they told his parents to speak English with them at home. This could be seen as good and bad. It was good because Rodriguez did need to learn English to be able to thrive and succeed in school, but at the same time he also needed to keep his identity and who he really was. Speaking Spanish was a part of who he was and sadly that piece of his became lost when the nuns came to his house. In conclusion I feel that I feel that Rodriguez felt he lost some of his personal identity but in return it made him more successful in his professional identity. For my link this week I decided to include a PBSpage that has a biography on Rodriguez as well as links of interviews he has done.