In Rodriguez's essay he uses private an public language to relate to the issues of bilingual education and explains how it differs from home and school.
At home Rodriguez and his family spoke spanish. That was the only language he knew. He was comfortable speaking spanish so to him it was a private language.
When he was in school, he had to learn english and to him it was a foreign language. Rodriguez found english to be a challenge. According to him english was the language of " Los Gringos", the american language. English to him was a public language.
As he began to learn english, he made the distinction that english was not only a public language, but a private one as well. When he finally learned english, it opened new opportunities that he could not achieve before.
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, such assimilation makes possible the achievement of public individuality.
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