Public And Private Language by Richard Rodriguez

In Rodriguez's essay, it seems like there are two distinct languages, private and public. Public and Private Language relates to the issue of bilingual education because Rodriguez spoke private language at home, and public language at school, and learned the importance of both. When he was at home his family all spoke spanish, to him spanish it was a normal language to use. He felt comfortable speaking spanish, to him this was a private language. When he was in school, he was learning english and to him was a foreign language. In school he found it difficult to learn english. According to him english was the language of " Los Gringos". I heard the first english words from when I over heard my parents speak it. In my opinion he learned the importance of both, he thought that speaking spanish was a private language, but then he realized that it was a public language like english.  The distinction between individuality and separateness that the author makes is that he says that there are two ways that a person is individualized, that one suffers a diminished sense of private individuality and the other becomes assimilated into public society.