Aria

Quotes...

"What i needed to learn in school was that i had the right and the obligation to speak the public language of los gringos."
This quote is at the beggining of the article, what he needed to learn was that he had the right and obligation to speak the publice language. After reading the couple pages, i thought to myself there wasnt any rights or any obligations for him. He didnt even have the choice to learn english. It was thrown at him, like here learn this, and learn this fast. In school, his nuns not understanding what it is like to not feel comfortable with a forengin lanugage, telling him to "stand up", "dont look at the floor" "stop mumbling". He was very shy about being in public, and he felt better speaking spanish in school. It was a trumatic experience for him to go through this. Having is teachers come to the house and tell his own flesh and blood that it would be better if the family started speaking english around the house. That allow changed his views on life at such a young age. He started speaking less to his family, because he did not feel that love when the family was speaking english. He didnt like the words, ma, papa, dad, mom. He wanted the spanish speaking diolouge. Richards father even loss spark in life, when he was around other spanish speaking men that Richard notice his father come alive again, his voice would spark, flicker alive with sounds. Silence took over there own home, and he felt anger when his parents only spoke english to him. At the dinner table instead of laughter of trying to speak "gringo" and sharing stories, it became noisy with knives and forks against dishes. He no longer bothered to listen to the family speak, he became careless to the public language he was supposed to be obligated to learn in the first place.

Quote 2:
"At first, it seemed a kind of game. After dinner each night, the family gathered to pratice our english"
This quote my not be to big of a deal, but for Richard i can feel this. At first being with is family speaking his native tounge where he felt comfortable at ease being home. He used to run home just to be home with his family where he felt most comfortable, where he could speak with ease. Starting it off almost as a game, miss prouncing words, and they laughed about it. Adding spanish sounds that was familiar to them while trying to pronouce english words, but they knew it was cheating. They were more or less having fun with it, because they were not strong with the"public language" themselves.  But then it slowly started to change to straight english. He walked in on his parents speaking spanish then in a moments change, they started to speak english. This is when he felt it changed for the worst. It scared him, he felt pushed away so he just walked away.

Quote 3:
"The silence at home, hoever, was finally more than a literal silence."
That is really scary to hear, more than a literal silence. Silence in a home when it was once filled with laugher and joy then changed to something that had no right being there is scary. There is a time and place for everything, being forced feed something that did not have to envole the home. It would help it the family helped with english games like the did at the table, but no to the point when it was complet english. That is like my family telling me to stop acting black, how can i do that. That is me, that is my background. Eliminating something that who are, you start to lose your sense of self as Richard did. He began to not feel like himself anymore in his own home. Home is where you make it, if there is not one place in the world where you should be happy, and free from this cold place should be your home. For Richards part he had that for a short while, until he was not performing in the "culture of power" to the point where NUNS came to his home and changed that. I am sure they had good intentions, but withouth them realizing that it would be determental to do that. They let there own privilidge get the best of them and change something that had no right to be changed. They conviced Richards own flesh and blood his own higher power to do something, because of what he was doing in school. His public idenentiy would of came out at a later age, not at 7 years old, he was a child, and they thought it should be sooner or later.