And in the following paragraphs I’m going to tell you some of my experiences on my first days in U.S. As soon as we came to U.S my mom told me that I have to start the school but she said “don’t worry the school is bilingual, they going to give you the classes in Spanish and they going to teach you English too” so I didn’t worry. When we get to the school the first person that we saw was the security lady and my mom ask her something in Spanish and she didn’t understand, so I get a little be nervous because I thought that if it was a bilingual school why she didn’t understand Spanish. Then we went to an office to subscribe me in the school, and was glad for me that was a least one person that speak Spanish. She said that a in the beginning I was going to take the regular classes in Spanish and two classes to learn English. So I thought that it wasn’t bad if I was going to take the classes in Spanish that means that the other students talk Spanish too.
Spanish is extremely relevant in today’s culture and society. If everyone exercised and elementary level of Spanish in their daily lives they would have the chance to talk to one of the many Spanish speaking peoples who live in America today. Teaching Spanish in elementary schools is so important, because as a person gets older, it will be harder for them to learn a new language. It is best to introduce a second language, like Spanish, while the child’s mind is still developing. When you introduce a new language to a highschooler or adult, the material become increasingly more difficult.
In school, Richard spoke English, but as soon as he got home, Spanish was the language of choice. This had a positive and negative effect on him. By speaking Spanish, it helped Rodriguez preserve his own culture, but as a disadvantage, it yielded his learning of English. A few times Richard heard his parents speak English, but that was only in public. Rodriguez felt safe in his Spanish speaking home because it was familiar to him.
“To strengthen my decision to add an American name, I had just finished fifth grade in Whittier, where all the kids incessantly called me “ferocious” (85). Ferocious sounded angry and violent. Dumas was not a mean person, in fact she just wanted to fit in and adapt to her new life. She did not want to be the kid who was not asked when she moved to America or where her accent went or if she was enjoying the country. She just wanted to be like everyone else on the block.
Cofer also talks a little about how the movies portray Puerto Rican and Latin Woman. It’s the main reason why we Americans automatically stereotype Puerto Rican and Latin women; it’s all we have seen, in the movies, so we don’t really know what the Puerto Rican or Latin culture is really like. The other main point Cofer makes is that even though she had a hard time when she was growing up she still became successful and that any one can do the same. We just have to turn all the negative into a positive and keep on living. I liked this article and I strongly agree with it.
She pointed out that mother tongue could affect everyone one of us, just like how she is affecting her husband without noticing. Her husband is not aware of the change of English form and the ‘weirdness’ of this form of English that they used to communicate among their family and the kind of English that she grew up with. It may be misunderstood by others, but to Amy, this type of English is perfectly clear and natural because this is her mother tongue. Her mother tongue is not a barrier in her ability to learn this English language, besides, she consider her mother tongue to be vivid, direct and full of observation and imagery which helped her to shape her way of seeing and expressing things, and to look at this world in a different way. People may consider her mother tongue to be ‘broken’ or ‘fractured’, or in another way they consider them as ‘limited English’, where people tend to relate limited English and limited perception together.
The bulk of the story explains her experience with different writing styles after her decision to focus everything on English. When Amy had initially started her career as a writer, she had tried her hardest to use a complicated, “overly sophisticated” form of English with lines such as: “That was my mental quandary in its nascent state.” She had never taken the time to think about the possible audience of her stories at this stage in her career. This has caused many lines in the original drafts of her stories to ultimately get scrapped because of the major breakthrough in her career. She had decided to begin writing in a style that would, “make sense” to her mother, using a dialect that would allow her mother to completely interpret and understand her stories. What she didn’t mention was what had caused such a change in her writing.
“Blending Culture” In Gina Valdes’ “English con Salsa” and Rhina Espaillat’s “Bilingual,” the merger of two cultures, Hispanic and American, is displayed with from the very beginning. These poems represent what many hispanic families or individuals face when trying to learn the English language. In “Bilingual,” the decision of what language to speak in the household is the root of a conflict between a father and daughter. Rhina Espaillat applies simple humor in the depiction of a common theme. “English con Salsa” and “Bilingual” illustrate that the learning and acceptance of a new culture may be achieved, but an individual’s own culture should never be relinquished.
In Mother Tongue Amy made a great point when she spoke about how when she was fifteen years old her mother would have her call people on the phone and pretend it was her in order to ask and receive the correct information she needed. “I think my mother’s English almost had an effect on limiting my possibilities in life as well.” In this quote Amy is discussing that because English is not her first language it could have jeopardizes her future in school and how she would educate herself all throughout college. Most people can relate to this because she already has disadvantage growing up and attending school as a young
This essay has a good discussion of Anzaldua defending the feelings and explaining how people like her feel when they are exposed to this because of the way she speaks the ‘American’. Anzaldua was required to take two speech classes at Pan American University just to get rid of her accent this is a example of linguistic prejudge she was exposed to. Therefore it was not just to get rid of her accent but also to get use to the American culture. I noticed this essays audience is Chicanos she wants to let them know we got to be who we are not what others want us to be like. Another audience can be to people who prejudge people like Anzaldua to make them feel guilty and keep them from prejudging others.