Richard Rodriquez

Richard Rodriquez is well-known both for his multiple best-selling books and for his work on PBS's News Hour with Jim Lehrer and is a recognized master of the intellectual autobiography, Hunger of Memory, using aspects of his own upbringing as the son of Mexican immigrants in Sacramento, California.

Rodriguez received a B.A. from Stanford University, an M.A. from Columbia University, was a Ph.D. candidate in English Renaissance literature at the University of California, Berkeley, and attended the Warburg Institute in London on a Fulbright fellowship

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He is the recipient of the 1993 Recipient of the Fraenkel Medal for Achievement in the Humanities and the 1997 Recipient of the George Peabody Award for Excellence in Television.

Richard Rodriquez believes that bilingual education hinders minorities from developing a public identity and is disadvantageous to their success because it does not push them to use the dominant language.

While I would agree with Rodriquez that to be successful is it necessary to understand the dominant language, I disagree with how to arrive at that place.

Rodriquez and I would probably also disagree on the definition of bilingual education.

To me bilingual education simply means: understandable instruction.

Because of their limited English skills, many people and, sadly amongst them educators, perceive ESL students as academically deficient and in need of a special remedial program to prepare them for the mainstream curriculum. The assumption is that English is prerequisite to literacy, when in fact, literacy is accessible through any language.

It is important to understand the bridge between first and second language. Learning a language is a developmental process which begins with oral development in the native language. This is followed by experiences in emergent literacy learning. With time the student becomes a reader, and later writer, and the total literacy knowledge is realized

The process of transferring native language skills into English can then occur with a minimum amount of trauma. Skills and concepts learned in the native language are manifested in English.

In other words, a students can keep learning academically while gaining English literacy.

When you speak two languages you cherish both of them.