Rodriguez has become a major influence on the formation of my survey. His essay on the formation of his personal and conflicting definition of literacy offers a perspective of political identity in the classroom.
Split Lives
Rodriguez splits his literacy between a seemingly oppressive new language, English, and the familiar comforting one, Spanish. Similar to the identification of languages with certain and opposing languages, initial individual political identification, how you were politically socialized, can change or hide when exposed to a perceived threat.
The heart of the issue is whether or not people feel comfortable sharing opinions on issues through the perspectives of their own political identification. Essentially, I am asking the question, “Are you comfortable speaking out for your beliefs in the classroom?”.