Rodriguez Article Response

I found Rodriquez’s story very interesting.  It also directly related to what I was thinking about when reading the previous article about literacy.  I chose five questions to answer about Rodriguez.  The first question I’m going to talk about is, what motivated you to go to college?  I think his mom had a large part to do with his motivation and with his education all around.  She constantly encouraged him and his siblings to do their best and get the best education they could so that they didn’t have to struggle to find a job like she did.  He also seemed to really enjoy school and his education in general.  This brings me to the next question, did your family support/value your educational path?  I believe that his parents wanted him to get the best education possible and supported that.  However, he did get made fun of by his own father, brother, and sister when he read.  Also, his mother would have liked for him to go to college closer to home, but I think she understood that he was getting a good education and it was best for his future.  My next question is, what level of access did you have to educational support?  I think in the beginning of his education he had a lot more support because his parents could help him.  Once he started getting older he did things more on his own (partly because his parents couldn’t help him).  His parents always tried to help him but simply didn’t have enough education to do so.  It also seemed like he had a lot of support from his teachers and really admired them.  The fourth question I chose to talk about is, what is the literacy background of your parents?  His parents spoke mostly Spanish, they could speak some English but it wasn’t always “correct” English.  His parents wanted their children to get a good education so that they were more literate, could get good jobs, and wouldn’t have to struggle through life like themselves.  The last question is, do you speak other languages?  He speaks Spanish and English, however, I think his English was getting better than his Spanish.  In the story he mentioned that he was losing his Spanish accent, but I know he didn’t forget how to speak Spanish because he still spoke it at home and around family.  I like that Rodriguez’s parents did everything they could to get their children the best education possible.  It is rare to find, not only, a supporting family, but also a very motivated child.