Robert Rodriguez’s’ “Aria” was published in 1982 and is an autobiographical memior of his early childhood as he was raised in a bilingual community while also dealing with his inner struggle to maintain his private cultural identity at the same time as adapting to a new public identity. At the center of these dueling spheres is language; it was something Rodriguez tied strongly with his identity and sense of self. His personal and intimate relationship with Spanish dictated his initial unenthusiastic feelings toward “gringos” and English speakers in general as expressed when he says, “The accent of los gringos was never pleasing nor was it hard to hear. Crowds at Safeway or at a bus stop would be noisy with sound. After I would be forced to edge away from the chirping chatter above me.” The word “aria,” that Rodriguez takes for the title of his story, itself means an air or melody of sounds. This word plays into the theme of his story that his native tongue of Spanish was music to his ears compared to the harsh sounds of the English speakers.
As he became more skilled and proficient in speaking English, he thought it harder to find enjoyment and an intimate connection in speaking his family’s Spanish. He, for lack of a better word, starts to forget his language because he is being discouraged from speaking Spanish, while being encouraged to speak only English within his private home sphere. The disconnect he experienced from his family that transpired from his situation gave him a sense of alienation within his own home and resonated feelings of guilt and shame. “As I grew fluent in English, I no longer could speak Spanish with Confidence,” and “I was cursed with guilt. Each time I’d hear myself addressed in Spanish, I would be unable to respond with any success,” demonstrate Rodriguez’s frustration and embarrassment he felt when trying to communicate. As a child, it must have been a confusing time in his life to be cut off completely from something that came naturally from him. Much of this guilt stems mostly from his extended family whom express shame in him for losing the ability to speak “flowing Spanish,” and nicknamed him hurtful names such as “pocho” which means colorless or bland.
I link the dishonor and embarrassment felt by Rodriguez as a child to the young school boy in Tomas Rivera’s short story “It’s That It Hurts,” from his greater novel of “The Earth Did Not Devour Him.” The “it” referred to by the title is the discrimination and shame felt by the main character towards the other children in his school. The unnamed boy knows that the school is aware that he is the son of Mexican immigrants and can use that fact as easy validation to expel him from school after getting in a fight. Unlike the young boy in Rivera’s story, Rodriguez receives encouragement from public figures (teachers) to assimilate into American Society and welcome him as he does, while receiving negative and discouraging feedback from his Mexican relatives. The contradiction between these two stories and what drew me to draw parallels between them were the similarities of parenting technique contrasted with the willingness of the child. The parents in “Aria” were always portrayed as very encouraging to the young Rodriguez while the parents in “It’s That It Hurts” are eluded to also wanting their child to stay in school to better his education in order to compete for better jobs. Both boys however, have different stances on what they want to do; Rodriguez assimilates while the young boy in Rivera’s novel would rather be in the fields with his parents. One must take in to account the different time periods that these memoirs come from, but I find it interesting to note that although they come from different periods, both sets of parents act in similar ways wanting their children to ultimately succeed. What is most interesting to me though is the source of the discrimination in the two stories.
My Question:
Is it general human nature to want our children to do better than us, or do you think there will ever be a generation of parents that act towards their children as they did toward their parents?
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