The Negative Impact of Bilangual Education

It is true that, fitting in and adapting to both divergent linguistic and cultural world mickle have lasting impacts on individuals, hence, Richard Rodriguez, in his book work of Desire, addresses his struggles as a young boy, trying to adapt to a bilingualist grooming and how that education alienated him from his uneducated Mexi cigarette parents. Additionally in the excerpts How to Tame a Wild Tongue, Gloria Anzaldua, while she in general focuses on the language of Mexican people in different aspects, also mentions her strife as a bilingual student.Although these two stories are different in many ways but they both job the negative impact of living in the borderlands. To better understand those cultural conflicts, it is essential to discern just what the borderlands consist of and who spans there, but most importantly what they represent in this context. The concept of the borderlands informs a variety of disciplines at the start of the twenty-first century, with many stu dies focusing on the boundaries where two or more disparate conceptual, social, or semipolitical entities overlap productively(Ybarra, 1-3).However, Anzalduas idea of the borderlands as an active place where people can form their own identity and political resistance remains the most influential according to quaternate respected scholars. Understanding the bioregional and ecological aspect of the US-Mexico borderlands, amplifies our knowledge of how colonization, exploitation, and racism impact the land and mostly the Chicanos. Furthermore, peerless can attribute the concept of borderlands with bilingual education with both English and Spanish being the two territories in question, as experienced by both Anzaldua and Rodriguez.In Anzalduas essay How to Tame a Wild Tongue she describes her early childhood struggles in school. One of her memories from elementary school was when she was language Spanish with her friends during recess, they would tell her If you want to be American, speak American. If you dont like it, go cover song to Mexico where you belong. (Anzaldua 43). In this situation she is forced to be silent and not speak. Growing up, she was constantly told from many of her elders that she needed to speak better English, and sound more American.Anzalduas own m some other was humiliated of the way that she wheel spoke English, saying it sounded like a Mexican. She reflects on two speech classes that she was required to take with all other Chicano students that had only cardinal purpose, to get rid of their emphasiss. In childhood we are told that our language is wrong. Repeated attacks on our native tongue diminish our sense of self. Until I can take pride in my language, I cannot take pride in myself. (Anzaldua 45-46). Part of language includes culture identity.It is unfair for people to feel ashamed of their identity due to the way they speak. Your language is what keeps you connected to your homeland and you should not feel guilty for spea king it. One should not have to go through speech classes to correct a native accent the accent is a part of your identity, it is part of who you are. You should not be ashamed to speak and express yourself, because you should never be judged on how you speak, but by the content of what youre saying. From adolescence the dominants are imposing their degrading views on the subordinates.Many of the teachers that approached these students, telling them if they want to speak Spanish go back to Mexico, are making assumptions base on prejudice about the individuals. The constant degrading ultimately lowers their self-esteem, making it difficult for them to feel that they can overcome being a part of the subordinate group. Anzaldua however rebels against these comments. She seems hostile to the English language and to a culture that does not honor the Spanish language in general or various Spanish dialects in particular.Her general response is one of defiance, for example when she says th at to attack an individuals form of expression (in her case, speaking her Chicano Spanish dialect at school) with the intent to censor is a violation of the First Amendment (40). She makes it very clear that she is heady to be linguistically free despite English oppression free to write bilingually and to vanquish linguistic codes without always having to translate (41). She is determined always to have a wild tongue. She proves that it is okay to know more than one language and that by speaking Spanish it does not make her less of a person.It possible that she wrote her story partly in Spanish so that she could make a point that she was royal of her native language. Rodriguez suffers the same oppressions but reacted differently to them. If Rodriguez is hostile to the same culture, he does not seem to be hostile to either Spanish or English as such. Instead, he realizes that in American culture, where one language only and educational accomplishment are connected to social and ma terial benefit, those who capture the function of language and education are more likely to obtain those benefits.But this comes at a determine because obtaining those benefits usually force emotional and cultural separation from family members who lack language or educational accomplishments. Rodriguez himself admitted that he cannot impart to admire his parentsHe permits himself embarrassment at their lack of education. And to evade nostalgia for the life he has lost, he concentrates on the benefits education will bestow upon him (Rodriguez, 15). Even Henry Staten, in his essay, remarks how his education, which culminated in a Ph. D in English from Berkeley in 1976, gradually alienated him from his uneducated, Mexican-born parents (Staten 8-10).In all, from both excerpts, we encounter the negative impact of bilingual education. Rodriguez, for whom monolingualism in English becomes a strategy for success in U. S society, brings his personal experience to the political realm by p romoting English as the sole language of public education in the U. SAnzaldua, on the other hand, reflects her linguistic background with a fine toothed comb, un tangling the many strands of English and Spanish that coexist in their multilayered identity. (Ramsdell 12-16) The diversity within America is constantly growing, which in turn means American culture is frequently changing. With all of these new and foreign cultures migrating to the U. S, come many new languages. Generally, many rely that language is power, but yet, people are constantly being silenced because of their broken English and accent. spell their politics differ widely, both Rodriguez and Anzaldua lives have been forever altered due to their linguistic affiliations, and most significantly by straddling on the borderlands.