Richard Rodriguez An Education In English Language Essay

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“Please don’t make me choose,” say many students who come to this country speaking languages other than English. The ethnic and linguistic diversity in the United States is what makes this nation different from any other country in the world, and the ethnic population of the United States has been growing at a rapid rate. However, with so many different cultures and languages coexisting in this nation, there has been constant debate about whether or not languages other than English should be honored and maintained in the American education system. As a result, non-native-English-speaking students are often caught in the dilemma of whether they should completely assimilate into American culture and the English language
In the article “An Education in Language,” Richard Rodriguez reflects on his childhood and teenage years in the 1950s as an immigrant and claims that losing his native culture had a
In current times, educators are encouraged to allow students to use their native languages inside and outside of the classroom. Olga Kagan, another researcher who was interviewed in “Bilingualism: When Education and Assimilation Clash,” says, “We lose much of the nation’s capacity in languages by letting go of this resource” (5). Although that may be true today, it was not the case when Rodriguez was in school. In “Bilingualism: When Education and Assimilation Clash,” author Melissa Anderson explains that bilingual education has had a long and complicated history. She reports that there were not many bilingual programs in the United States until 1968 and that there was “tension between forced assimilation and educationally sound practices” (5) in the past. Consequently, this would have not been a realistic solution. It would have been better if Rodriguez’s parents had been the ones to keep Spanish alive for their