The Alchemist By Pablo Coelho

While people come in all shapes in sizes, underneath it all we are still flesh and blood. Even if people have a different skin color or orientation we are all humans living on this earth. This idea, no this fact was really driven home to me when I was traveling with my family around the world. We met people in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Ecuador and though they looked and talked different they had the same needs, concerns and wants. I found a quote by Santiago, a boy in The Alchemist, written by Paulo Coelho that really explains this better than I ever could, “I have inside me the winds, the deserts, the oceans, the stars, and everything in the universe.

Growing up Mexican-American in the United States can be a challenge itself. Throw in the task, of learning two languages, it made for a very confused little girl. There was often times growing up when I wondered why no one, but my family spoke Spanish. Why everyone at school and all my friends spoke this different language. Sometimes it even seemed like I was two different people.

The Alchemist Santiago has many mentors along the way during his journey. He had the alchemist, the crystal merchant, and his own sheep. The alchemist helped Santiago turn himself into the wind. Turning Santiago into the wind saved his life, he was being held captive and when he turned into the wind he was able to escape from the people holding him captive.

In the reading “To Live In Spanish: An Immigrant Commentary” by Trinidad Villegas, the subject of inequities in language is discussed. She explains her own account of dealing with intersecting identities. When immigrating to the U.S. she spoke only Spanish. This became a problem.

Happiness Have you ever worked hard to accomplish something and felt really good about it in the end? Even when you did not get exactly what you were working for? You may be scared to try something at first, and it may actually be scary, but once you complete it, you will feel a great sense of pleasure. You can also learn many new lessons and meet new people who can help you during your journey. This concept is recognized throughout the whole story.

It has been proven that it is much easier to learn a language when you are younger, but practice makes perfect. In order to do well in the class, I had to study frequently to help understand and remember words, which is normal. I think learning Spanish helped me understand the culture. In class, we learned about holidays they celebrated, such as, Cinco De Mayo and the Day of the Dead. This helped me understand what they valued.

Jessica Alba said, “I wish I could speak Spanish, because it would be a lot easier to play more interesting roles.” Is learning Spanish necessary in the society we live in today? Gloria Anzaldua, author of “How to Tame A Wild Tongue”, explains how she grew up in a life that did not accept the Spanish language in school and wanted, “to get rid of our accents” (26). She shows how people use different variations of Spanish to connect to other Spanish speakers. Anzaldua emphasizes that the types of languages influences the lives of others and can change the way they approach each type of Spanish to one’s life.

Learning Spanish before English made pronunciation and spelling difficult for me due to the different rules of grammar. It was not until the fifth grade that I became interested in reading.

Spanish was my first language and neither one of my parents knew english. I would go to school and just listen and try to learn every little thing I could get my hands

Being bilingual can be both useful or irritating, having the ability to communicate and understand several languages or being raised to be an interpreter for your parents. As you become more exposed to a variety of languages you can often observe how society treats certain languages. Martin Espada is a lawyer and poet who defends Spanish speakers in America, makes it clear about the role of language in his essay, “The New Bathroom Policy at English High School.” He asserts that the importance of language is created from cultural identity. When Espada shared what he learned about maintaining and defending Spanish he proceeded to say, “Defending the right of all Latinos to use the tongue of their history and identity creates in me passion for Spanish itself.”

He supports this argument by telling his own story of being forced to learn English by the bilingual education system. The experience he had learning English made him experience great embarrassment, sadness, and change. Rodriguez concludes his experience by discussing how English had changed his personal life at home: “We remained a loving family, but one greatly changed. No longer so close;no longer bound tight by the pleasing and troubling knowledge of our public separateness.” By learning English, Rodriguez’s family is finally able to integrate into society without language barriers.

Growing up in a Spanish-speaking household, he reflects on the intimacy and warmth of his family's private language. However, as he entered school and adopted English, he experienced a sense of alienation from his heritage and his family. Rodriguez argues that the shift to English not only facilitated his academic success but also widened the gap between him and his loved ones. Through introspection, he acknowledges the sacrifices and trade-offs involved in embracing the public language. Rodriguez's essay poignantly highlights the complex relationship between language, culture, and personal identity, prompting readers to reflect on their own experiences of linguistic assimilation and the resulting transformations.

In “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood,” Richard Rodriguez outlines the struggles he encountered growing up speaking Spanish in an English speaking society. He describes some of the hardships and difficulties he was forced to endure in assimilating into an English speaking American culture. In his essay, Rodriguez describes the importance of language and the influence it had on his early life. Through the use of vivid imagery and psychological appeals, Rodriguez is able to compare his native Spanish language to the foreign English language that surrounds him.

In Rhina Espaillat’s poem, “Bilingual/Bilingüe”, she has described her cultural situation as rough. Espaillat discusses how her father did not allow for her daughter to speak both languages, English and Spanish, together in the house. The father demanded her to only speak Spanish inside the house and English outside only because he is afraid that the language will tear their relationship apart. However, since Espaillat considered herself stubborn, she didn’t want the separation of languages, she taught herself English. Being raised in a household with a different language than what the dominant language is outside of the household is difficult for some individuals, however, mixing cultural differences and languages into one is wonderful.

The essay which presents a better model of bilingual learning and integration is “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, but both present experiences that should and shouldn’t be involved in one’s language and cultural assimilation into today’s society. In “Aria”, the author makes his stance clear by sharing experiences, opinions, and reflecting upon his journey to the English language. Richard Rodriguez recalls, “Because I wrongly imagined that English was intrinsically a public language and Spanish an intrinsically private one, I easily noted the difference between classroom language and the language of home,” (Rodriguez, 466). He felt intimacy from Spanish with his family, as it was their private language that others around them couldn’t understand and they couldn’t understand English; their isolation from language barriers brought bring the family closer together.