Hunger of Memory: Richard Rodriguez
HYPERLINKS

This piece, being an autobiography was more moving than other pieces we have read in class because it is not a person writing about or referring to another person but every experience was a first hand one and what he experienced as a child and even as an adult is truly eye opening. I think everybody can relate to his situation in some way, maybe not experiencing the same situations but knowing somebody who has. We all have grown accustomed to certain societal beliefs about immigrants and how and why they travel to the United States. We have forgotten the purposes of them being here and why it is so crucial to help them adapt and help them channel their heritages to add to our "melting pot" or "salad bowl" of a country.
I related this piece to another class I am taking right now, CEP 315 and in this class we have recently been discussing language barriers in schools and how programs are being created to help those who are not native English speakers. Rodriguez talks a lot about his home life and how comfortable he felt inside his home, despite it being in the US but it was because of the language that was being spoken that made him feel so at home. His parents and three other siblings always addressed him in Spanish and this was his norm. On his first day of school his teacher addressed him as Richard instead of Ricardo and every student in the class were native English speakers. There is a program that is developed in the D.C area that is about incorporating the English and Spanish languages every day in the classroom. In our CEP 315 class we watched a video about the program. After reading this piece I began to think about if the program existed when Rodriguez was in school if it would have made a difference for him.
There is second video I posted that discusses the status of education programs and how bilingual education programs are becoming more popular throughout the country. The history of immigrant flow and the relation that this has to the current issue is extremely relevant. The number of immigrant children affects whether or not programs like the Dual Language Program will work.

Personal thoughts/comments:
I believe it will benefit all children, those who speak English as a first language and those who do not, to have multiple language programs in schools. I think we start learning another language way too late in life and miss the opportunity to actually understand and comprehend what it means to learn another language. It was very moving to read about the experiences a young child had in school and relating that to their home life as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6PwrSSZ3co

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tIppleeIjk