Richard Rodriguez: Aria

1."An accident of geography sent me to a school where all my classmates were white, may be children of doctors and lawyers and business executives."

This quote stood out to me because I feel that the author feels like he is alone because he did not come from a high life with people who succeeded in his family. I feel that this quote shows that he is the minority, but if you really think about it,blacks are the minority in any environment. The whites are to said to be successful and the author I feel, thinks that he is not good enough to be in the same school as whites. Also, I feel that the author thinks that whites are more successful,but there are blacks that can do anything whites can do.

2. "I would have been happier about my public success had I not sometimes recalled what it had been like earlier, when my family had conveyed its intimacy through a set of conveniently private sounds.

This quote stands out to me because I feel that the author is not happy with his success from the obstacles that he had to face to get to where he is now. I feel that his family was not there for him because his family conveyed the intimacy through private sounds. His family may have been there for him, but the physical aspect does not get noticed to him. I feel that the author should be happy no matter what but the support from loved ones makes people who become successful, happier.

3."I would dishonor those I have loved and those I love now to claim anything else. I would dishonor our closeness by holding on to a particular language an calling it my family language."

This quote in a way sums up what this reading is all about.He is saying that he would dishonor the closeness for his native language. I feel that the author really cares about the type of person he is because he would basically sacrifice things to hold onto his "family language". He also states that he would dishonor ones that he loved which says how much his native language means to him because he would give up basically being successful for his language that he grew up knowing. This shows me that the author is a strong person for doing what he does.


This article to me was very interesting and I wanted to know more about the author. The part that really caught my attention was the bilingualist part because people who come to the United States mostly do not speak English and they want to be able to speak thier native language. I feel as the years go on English is starting to become the comman language spoken in the US. I feel that people can succeed no matter the language they speak becaue the US is so diverse. Most things that you see in everyday life can be in English or Spanish. Anyones native language will always be with them because everyone is human and all of us do not need to have everything in comman.