Rodriguez: Aria

In the article "Aria", Rodriguez tells his story about how he was socially disadvantaged. He talks about how he was scared to use the english language because he felt like it wasn't his language to use. He wanted teachers to address him in Spanish, a language he felt comfortable using. His teachers always viewed him as shy but this is because he didn't like being called on because he didn't really know the english language. Eventually the school saw that Rodriguez and his brother and sister were all really shy. So the school sent people to Rodriguez's house to talk to his parents. After the people from his school left, his parents told him and his siblings they should start to talk at home in english and no more Spanish. So doing as his parents told him, he went on to learn english in school well, long with his siblings. But since he stopped using Spanish, he basically couldn't speak it anymore. His parents on the other hand had no real way of truly learning english so they knew very little english, and they still talked mostly Spanish. This was bad because Rodriguez and his siblings could no longer really communicate with there parents. And there house was always semi quiet.

I argue that this was a bad idea for the school to tell the parents to have the kids speak english all the time at home, and for the parents to make there kids speak only english at home. Rodriguez tells a story about one time he walks into the kitchen while his parents were speaking Spanish, but when they saw him walk in they switched the conversation to english. What they should have done was still speak Spanish and english so there kids would be able to speak both languages. Also the school should of helped Rodriguez and his siblings learn english while still knowing the words in Spanish.

If only Rodriguez could of had this to help.