“American Multilingual: A National Tragedy”

              Franklin Raff’s article “American Multilingual: A National Tragedy” to inform and convince you that the multilingualism of this country is a tragedy and it’s leaving many immigrants ‘lost in translation’. It explained that the language barrier was immense for immigrants and it halted their financial progress. The audience are American citizens of any age or ethnicity, to make citizens feel empathy. The author is a Spanish-speaking Hispanic that has had some experiences with multi-linguistic dilemmas.

              This writing uses rhetorical devices such as an appeal to emotions and logic, like when he starts to share statistics about the educational rate of Hispanics and then he proceeds to say “How does that feel?” to try and convince you emotionally and show you how misfortune Hispanics are. The statistics he provided for his appeal to logic show how Hispanics are not being educated enough, with 50% of them dropping out in high school, and 1 in 12 of those who graduate, will go on to get a degree. He also uses an appeal to ethics when he makes this exact point, trying to emphasize that these people are struggling and a good citizen would help them out, so you feel a responsibility to help them. This strategy gives people incentive to help out the people who can’t speak English. The author uses a rhetorical question when he says” How common is the portrait of a Latino family cruising along in a new, $25,000 hybrid?” expecting us jump to the conclusion that a Latino family won’t commonly be using that car.

            The text provided many clear points and interesting statistics that pushed her argument forward. It made feel empathy for the immigrants, mostly because of the relatability of their situation, since most of Miami is very Cuban. It was also very informative with many statistics regarding the immigrant’s opinions and their linguistics.