FREE ESSAY ON RICHARD RODRIGUEZ ON BILINGUEL EDUCATION

RICHARD RODRIGUEZ ON BILINGUEL EDUCATION

Richard Rodriquez on Bilingual Education
In "Memories of a Bilingual Childhood," Richard Rodriquez argues against Bilingual
Education with reflection to his own experiences. He states that "It is not possible for
a child, any child, ever to use his family's language in school. Not to understand this
is to misunderstand the public uses of schooling and to trivialize the nature of intimate
life." Rodriquez believes that school is a place in which people develop their public
identity. To merge "intimate" aspects with public ones creates no distinction between the
two and in result, both could be lost. 
As a child, Rodriquez associated intimacy with language. As time passed, the realization
was that the language itself was not the source for Rodriquez. He concluded, "to seek
intimate sounds is to seek the company of intimates." So therefore, intimacy does not
rely solely on words but rather on the presence of people. In defining public and private
identity, he reminds us that one cannot be public and remain private at the same time. It
would be as if he used his "private" language randomly in public, than the intimacy would
be lost forever.
It is important to keep some aspects of your life separate, but according to Rodriquez,
success depends on your fluency in the public language. Without knowing the dominant
language, it is very hard to obtain a job, or even go to the supermarket. As long as
Bilingual Education is allowed, minorities will be put at a disadvantage in society. 
Richard Rodriquez believes that bilingual education hinders minorities from developing a
public identity and is disadvantageous to their success because it does not push them to
use the dominant language.