"I was never at War With My Tongue": The Third Language and the Performance of Bilingualism in Richard Rodriguez

In this essay, I revisit the Chicano writer Richard Rodriguez's much-debated opposition to bilingual education. I focus on Rodriguez's trope of the third language to limn his politics and aesthetic of intimacy. Despite his denial of a public presence for linguistic hybridity, I suggest that a performance of bilingualism permeates Rodriguez's writing.