But that may only be a way ofsaying that the day I raised my hand in class and spoke loudly to an entireroomful of faces, my childhood started to en

But that may only be a way ofsaying that the day I raised my hand in class and spoke loudly to an entireroomful of faces, my childhood started to en

ateness and they trivialize the dilemma of the socially disadvantaged.My awkward childhood does not prove the necessity of bilingual educa-tion. My story discloses instead an essential myth of childhood—inevitablepain.

Thesocial and political advantages I enjoy as a man result from the day that I cameto believe that my name, indeed, is Rich-heard Road-ree-guess.

Hearing a Spanish-speaking family walking behind me, Iturned to look. I smiled for an instant, before my glance found the Hispanic-looking faces of strangers in the crowd going by.

By contrast, my father seemed reconciled to the new quiet.Though his English improved somewhat, he retired into silence. At dinner hespoke very little.

We remained a lov-ing family, but one greatly changed. No longer so close; no longer bound tightby the pleasing and troubling knowledge of our public separateness. Neithermy older brother nor sister rushed home after school anymore, Nor did l

At last, seven years old, I came to believe what had been technically truesince my birth: I was an American citizen

A10more and more confident speaker of English,

Only then did Idetermine to learn classroom English. Weeks after, it happened: One day inschool I raised my hand to volunteer an answer. I spoke out in a loud voice.And I did not think it remarkable when the entire class understood.

The scene was inevitable: One Saturday morning 1entered the kitchen where my parents were talking in Spanish. I did not real-ize that they were talking in Spanish however until, at the moment they sawme, I heard their u)ices change to speak English. Those gringo sounds theyuttered startled me. Pushed me away. In that moment of trivial misunderstand-ing and profound insight, I felt my throat twisted by unsounded grief. I turnedquickly and left the room. But I had no place to escape to with Spanish. (Thespell was broken.) My brother and sisters were speaking English in another par

. Theodd truth is that my first-grade classmates could have become bilingual, in theconventional sense of that word, more easily than I.

I considered Spanish to be a private languag

los gringos.

hat they understood was that I needed to speak a public language. So theirvoices would search me out, asking me questions. Each time I'd hear them, I'dlook up in surprise to see a nun's face frowning at me. I'd mumble, not reallymeaning to answer. The nun would persist, "Richard, stand up. Don't look at thefloor. Speak up. Speak to the entire class, not just to me!" But I couldn't believethat the English language was mine to use. (In part, I did not want to believe it.)I continued to mumble. I resisted the teacher's demands. (Did I somehowsuspect that once I learned public language my pleasing family life would bechanged?)

Because I wrongly imagined that English was intrinsically a public languageand Spanish an intrinsically private one,

Words were meaningfullyordered. And the point was not self-expression alone but to make oneself under-stood by many others.