My great grandfather came to America from the Dominican Republic on a boat to provide a better life for the many generations of his family to come. My great-grandfather’s perseverance and courage always inspires me to always work hard. Although my first language was English, I am learning Spanish now so I can become more connected with my heritage. I never had much of a chance to learn about the Dominican Republic from my grandparents because of the language barrier between us. My Dominican background is important to me because of the rich culture.…
Middle school is difficult enough to navigate, but with the added pressure of a foreign language, school can become stressful and confusing. Through the end of sixth grade and through the following summer, Luis did not even care to learn English. He lived in an area with a high Latino population, and his parents only spoke Spanish; the need to learn English did no present itself. Even while in school, perhaps because he came in during the middle of the year, no one cared if he learned anything. If assignments were not completed, it was viewed as okay because he did not know English anyway.…
Rodriguez has an alternative approach to the controversial topic of bilingualism. His opinion reflects a more practical, logical approach to bilingualism. When explaining his past experiences of English teachers in American classrooms, Rodriguez states “What they understood was that I needed to speak a public language” (20). He expresses gratitude towards his previous instructors because he believes that “Fortunately, my teachers were unsentimental about their responsibility” (20). Their responsibility being to teach Rodriguez the public language of…
“Our enemies have made the mistake that America’s enemies always make. They saw liberty and thought they saw weakness. And now, they see defeat.” George W. Bush stated this about the cowardly September 11th attacks. During that fateful day I was glued to my poorly constructed high school chair, gazing in disbelief what was unfolding on Mr. Cox’s History class television.…
He held on deeply to Spanish because it gave him a feeling of closeness and importance. Using this language at home made him feel comfortable in the fact that he could not interact outside of home and did not have a public identity. As long as he could go home at the end of the day and hear the embracing sounds of his family’s voice, he had no desire to broaden his outside appearance and identity. The turning point not only in his life, but also academic career began whenever nuns from his school showed up at his house to ask his parents to start speaking only English at home. His parents complied with the nuns’ request.…
My project consisted in broke a cultural norm about language. I visited some shops whit the idea to speak in Spanish and not in English with cashiers at the moment to pay for some of my items. I visited three places in Lansing: Target, Wal-Mart, and Meijer. During my visit in Target at the moment of pay my items I was assisted by a young lady, she was around twenty-five, was blond and a little shy. When I arrived at her workplace I introduced myself in Spanish, and I explained to her, in Spanish, that I wanted to buy all that stuff.…
Many people don’t know what they want to be when they “grow up”, as for my mother she didn’t know what type of religion she wanted to be in when she “grew up”. However, she did know the basics that she believed in which was God, the Holy Spirit, his son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Bible that being said she considered herself Christian and raised me as a Non-Denominational Christian. That was until my senior year of High School when my mom decided she no longer wanted to be part of the Non-Denominational Christian faith and switched over to becoming part of the LDS faith known as the Mormons and flipped my life upside-down with their different views of norms and values. Growing up Non-Denominational Christian is fairly simple faith and to me…
This mistake that I’m writing about took a rather long time to learn that it was a mistake. Ever since I was a child my parents always pushed for me to learn Spanish. Probably due to the fact that my family is Spanish and that half of my relatives speak Spanish only. I never got into learning Spanish, and well they couldn’t blame me, I only started speaking English when I was six. Before that I was using basic sign language which I have now forgotten.…
Writing Sample Without a doubt in my mind the best class I have taken in the past two years of my academia was my high school Spanish class. I developed a very good relationship with my instructor Sr. K, that was probably the biggest reason it was my favorite class; However, the way his class was stuctured and how he taught contributed it to being my favorite class in the last two years. We would always start the day with a class plan so everyone would know what was going to take place in class and the next. Sr. k was very detailed in lessons…
It was six A.M. and we were all dragging ourselves to get up from the bed. The family and I were heading for Mexico and the plane was to leave at 8:30 a.m. We had packed earlier that week. I was anxious mostly because my father would continuously talk about the dangers of the streets and people.…
V. said we do English and Spanish every day at circle time and everything in the class is labeled with Spanish and English and the books in the library are the same way.” Ms. V chose this field because she loves children and she wants to see that the children know their language and they were not forgot about when they were learning English. Mrs. V’ s native language is Spanish and she is from Mexico City. She started learning English at the age of 13. Mrs. V, said, “yes she was fluent in her native language before she started speaking English.”.…
Richard Rodriguez believes that the Americanization of a bilingual child will result in their public gain. “Aria” by Richard Rodriguez is a heart-wrenching piece of writing about the full Americanization of Rodriguez resulting in his native language of Spanish being forgotten and the full submersion into the English language. Many of the events Rodriguez faced in his life are present to many other bilingual students’ today. These events that bilingual students’ are facing will strongly influence their decision on struggling to learn two languages at a young age, stalling the development of one of their languages, or being forced to choose one language or the other in a full assimilation. Rodriguez’s viewpoint is that if you want to make a full…
A “hundred languages” are used to express children’s thoughts and ideas. Therefore,…
On August 26, 2005, I gave my life to Christ, and it was the start of a whole new chapter of my journey. I still remember that night vividly in my head. The feelings of excitement, joy, and love were very tangible in my heart. My mom and dad were both sitting beside me on my bed while I was told the importance of this decision and how my life would never be the same. Even at 5 years old, I was aware of my decision to follow Jesus and accept him into my heart.…
Ever since I was a little girl, I have attended church. My family has always gone, even before my sister and I were born. They would take us every week and raised us as Godly girls. Growing up in church had its ups and downs, but for me there were many more ups and positive aspects of church in my life.…