Tongue Tied Reflection Blog Post

 

Tongue Tied, by Richard Rodriguez
 

            In Tongue Tied, this week’s assigned reading, Richard Rodriguez reflects on his experience with language surrounding his education, and how the treatment of Spanish and English in his life led him to misconceptions about the roles of the two languages. 

While I have been fortunate enough to never personally struggle with the loss of my linguistic identity, I am in a position now where I have begun to observe it in others. The first people that came to mind when reading about the author’s account of how he was confident speaking Spanish and would’ve been encouraged by his teachers or peers speaking it (and how being the only student whose first language was Spanish made him feel isolated from everyone else) are two of the middle school boys that live on the dorm I work at. Their names are Jeronimo and Mauricio, and they both come from Mexico. They’re both sweet kids, and are doing well socially from what I observe, but there’s no denying the identifiable drop in their voice whenever they speak with me or other staff. I hear them excitedly talking to each other in Spanish often, but they mostly keep to themselves and their other Spanish-speaking friends outside of light casual interactions with other students. However, there is one student who's been making an effort to learn Spanish, and I’ve noticed Mau and Jero opening up to this student far more than anyone else I’ve seen in my almost year of knowing them. It’s heart-warming to see, and this week’s reading has helped me to understand exactly what they’re feeling when they see one of their peers making the effort to communicate with them on their terms.

However, this reading has also enlightened me to exactly what they’re feeling living in a place where they’re feeling out of place on even a simple linguistic level. The segment of the reading about how Richard lost his escape from English when it began to invade his home was heartbreaking, and I’m keenly aware of how few people on campus and even in the dorm can speak with Mau and Jero in their native language. With this in mind, I am going to be more conscious of how I communicate with them, and though it’s difficult to dedicate time to learning a language while juggling work and college, I would like to pursue learning Spanish as a means of being able to speak with and bond with these kids on their terms. 

Coming into class after reading this, I think a point of discussion we should spend time with is ways to accommodate students who have a language barrier like this, when we (unfortunately) are not familiar with the language and do not have the time or resources to effectively learn the language. I’d love to know if there’s more I can be doing to effectively communicate with these kids, and if there are resources out there to make learning a new language on a tight schedule easier that I might be missing out on.

Attached here is a hyperlink to an article further discussing the struggles students with a non-english first language often face in educational environments, and some ways schools might be able to combat them: https://www.concernusa.org/story/language-barriers-in-classroom/