Apparently, the language is the one to blame for the communication breeches inside the family. On the other hand, the author uses another personal experience, his relationship with his grandmother, who died when he was nine years old, in order to show how they remained close even after he was no longer comfortable with using his native language, but perfectly able to understand it . Besides public and private sphere, another distinction the author makes on his way to counterattack the program of bilingual education is that between private and public individuality. In making a case against those "bilingualists" (Rodriguez, 338) who "simplistically scorn the value and necessity of assimilation" (idem), he favors the public individuality, arguing...

However, he does not continue to explain the concept of public individuality and how it differs from that of private individuality. Furthermore, his distinction does not provide clues as to how children educated in the bilingual education system may fail to develop their public individuality.
The fact that language poses a serious barrier on one's way to achievement in a certain society is today undeniable. Richard Rodriguez is making a weak case against those who support the contrary by making too much use of his and his family's personal experience and thus heavily relaying on particularities in a case that needs an infinitely broader approach.