Richard Rodriguez's Aria

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The world is filled with so many contradictions and concepts that are agued. In the essay “Aria” by Richard Rodriguez, he argues against teachers who believe that young children, from ages one to five, should be taught in school through their native language. The persona that Richard uses in this essay is that of a native Latino child who immigrated to America. Richard argues that it would not be beneficial to children’s learning because he was taught that “I had the right-and the obligation-to speak the public language” (The Northern Reader, Rodriguez pg. 286). Learning and using the public language was viewed as socially acceptable and that other languages were seen private.
Richard goes on to explain his difficulty, as a Mexican immigrant,

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