Topic > Rodriguez, Anzaldua and the American Dream - 1080

Rodriguez, Anzaldua and the American Dream I find it interesting that although Rodriguez and Anzaldua come from comparable backgrounds, they feel very different about similar issues. Rodriguez believes education should not be bilingual for children who come from Spanish-speaking families. Anzaldua on the other hand thinks that people should not crush the culture of these people and should do everything possible to help them preserve it. I think in this sense you could compare Anzaldua and Rodriguez to the idea of ​​American culture, as they each represent an extreme of how we see it. On one hand we have Anzaldua, the idea that America is a melting pot, combining all the different cultures of the different people who live here to create a new and different stew, she is the idealized thought of what America is like. On the other side there is Rodriguez, who thinks that the only way to succeed is to assimilate into the culture that exists and abandon one's old culture, this is the most cynical and, in some ways, the most realistic view. Now Anzaldua is not entirely unaware of the fact that we must assimilate. This is demonstrated by how well known and respected she is. To get to where he is he had to assimilate, just like Rodriguez did. However the difference is that while she was assimilating under duress, Rodriguez jumped at the opportunity to assimilate. Anzaldua, while wearing a mask that corresponded to the majority culture, was still the same underlying culture. Rodriguez, on the other hand, changed the very culture he identified with. While she still identified with the culture that had managed to survive under oppression for hundreds of years, he divested himself of the culture of his immigrant parents and accepted the majority culture of Am... middle of paper... same subdued and compartmentalizing, it did so by becoming indistinguishable from the majority culture. I find the differences between Anzaldua and Rodriguez interesting. Although they came from similar backgrounds and went in similar directions, they are extremely different. They both explain how and why they chose the path they did in their essays, and I believe both of their ideas have merit. While Anzaldua is right that in her writing she should be allowed to write however she wants, it's harder to get your point across if readers don't speak the language and have to translate every few sentences. And even if Rodriguez is right and education changes us, I don't think forcing everyone to do their education the same way he did is the best thing, even though it may have worked for him, it won't necessarily work for others in his situation.