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 agrues that ones' personal family and traditional lifestyle can be completely changed when one is trying to become a member of the society/culture 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 quote because it made me feel sorry in a way.  Not only for Rodriguez, but for all the people who speak different languages and have to change their traditions to be accepted into the society/culture of power.  It's not fair for people to have to change, but it is the reality of it.  It's very different being in the white majority of people, I will never have to change anything in my life to fit in, nor will I ever know what it is like to give up a 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 this quote, but I looked at the implicit meaning 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.  That makes me angry at this "power" white people seem to have.

3)  "But the special feelings 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 great happiness.  Rodriguez expresses how much tradition and family mean to him, and by loosing all of it, he feels as if he lost his family in a way.  Now they are accepted into the "public", because they all can speak English, but they have lost the bonds their family shared because they were not accepted.

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 something you never knew you had to be.  Rodriguez shows what it is like 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.  He also expresses what it is like to loose personal identity and feel like an out cast.