The Education of Richard Rodriguez - Hunger of Memory

I just finished reading Hunger of Memory as an assignment for a Language and Literacy class I'm taking in my teacher training program. I recommend this book to all teachers or to people like myself who are planning to be teachers. Rodriguez does a outstanding job of capturing the feelings of confusion and separation one feels when learning English. I liked how Rodriguez corelates language with intimacy. He talks a lot about how Spanish was for him a language of intimacy and family. When he learned English in school, however, he lost a lot of that intimacy in the home when he began to lose his language. One particularly sad part was when his grandmother died and he wasn't able to speak to her or say goodbye beforehand because his Spanish was so limited and his grandmother spoke only Spanish. Towards the end of the book, Rodriguez exhibits a lot of honesty and courage in writing about his feelings on affirmative action. As a result of assimilation and studying in England, Rodriguez no longer felt like he could be an effective role model for minority students. However, because he was a Mexican-American with a Phd in Renaissance Literature and because he was a "minority professor", he was expected by Berkley administrators (and students) to be such a role model. When some hispanic students ask him to teach a minority literature class at a community center, he declines. As a result, they treat him like a sell-out. All in all, I admire how Rodriguez is not afraid to take stances on issues like affirmative action and bilingual education that go against what is expected, considering his race. One would expect him to be in support of both programs, but he is not. Though I do not agree on his stances on these issues, I truly admire his ability to be true to his convictions in spite of being called a sell-out.

Vance Packard, in researching his book "The Status Seekers," found that upward mobility in the United States was much more difficult than Americans would like to believe, and that those who were successful made it largely by cutting ties to their roots. Although framed in the context of ethnicity--Richard Rodriguez' book makes that same point. Moving up from working class to upper middle class promised success and acceptance and self-respect, but getting there was a little like edging out onto the ice, feeling inadequate and fearful that at any moment he might fall through. This book will resonate with anyone--immigrant or not, minority or not--who has made such a journey. Rodriguez scathingly criticizes affirmative action and bi-lingual education programs, correctly identifying the first as promoting socially crippling labels--"disadvantaged minority"--and the second as an obstacle to what he sees as the keys to success in America--a solid education and learning to speak and write English well. Rodriguez discovers early on what many of those with romantic notions about their ethnic or racial heritage eventually come to realize--that he is an American. But in the sadness he feels at the growing distance between himself and his parents, he fails--and several previous reviewers of this book fail--to note one very important thing. Upward mobility occurs incrementally, not in one leap. Rodriguez was put in a position to get that excellent education, to learn to speak unaccented English, and to become a respected author and scholar by parents who left Mexico and the little homogeneous Catholic towns and moved to the United States. In short, by parents who had cut the ties to their own roots.

This book was a difficult read. I admit openly that it is a strain for me to understand the feeling of minority. I am a middle-middle class white person, privileged by virtue of the fact that my parents stayed together for 53 years until my father passed away, blessed by being an "Air Force brat", which entitled me to meet people of all different races, socioeconomic groups, and nationalities to the extent that I don't see those things anymore. It is hard for me to relate. Rodriguez begins the book by mocking upper-class people for being arrogant, and middle-class people for attempting "cheap imitations of lower-class life". Are there really people in America who divide individuals into classes like that? And if class is so important, to what class would he assign himself? My father taught me to respect all people and that every man's work is good if it is honest work, so I would not presume to judge a person's character by his socioeconomic class.

Overlooking this obstacle, I see that Rodriguez, like all good writers, writes from his own experience of life. He was intensely impacted by the transition from Spanish to English in his life. His mother insisted on English being spoken in the home, according to the recommendations of well-meaning nuns, but as a result, the author lost an integral part of his home experience, the music of his native tongue. Additionally, he lost connection with his mother and father, because while his mother attained a rudimentary grasp of the English language, his father never quite caught on, so his relationship with his wife and children was radically changed. According to the author, his father lived voiceless in his own home, which was a sad state of affairs for the former head of the household.

Rodriguez states that he is against affirmative action as it is legislated, where the only requirement to qualify is to belong to a minority group, such as African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and Native Americans. When he realized that he had received an exceptional level of early schooling during his years in private Catholic school, it became clear that he was not really socially disadvantaged at all. At that point in time, it was evident that there were many other students out there who were far more needful of the benefits of the affirmative action program. Furthermore, Rodriguez equated the meaning of the word "minority" with "alienated from the public (majority) society", and found that by becoming a student, he did not consider the term "minority" to describe him. Neverthless, for reasons that are somewhat blurry, he accepted the benefits of the program, went on to denigrate the program publicly, only to have it thrown back in his face by minority leaders who did not appreciate him rocking the proverbial boat. Eventually he apologizes for taking the benefits that someone else was more deserving of receiving; however, he acknowledges that it is unlikely they will ever read his apology.

The author's apparent love of his parents, his obedience to them and respect for their struggle in a strange country, was wonderful to see in the beginning of this book. Rodriguez's recognition of his parents is well deserved, for his father and mother made considerable sacrifices to give their children a better chance in the world than they had personally experienced. They left their Mexican town filled with memories, family, and friends, to take their children to a land of increased opportunity. They worked hard and managed to send their three children to private Catholic school. They attended an Irish-American church instead of the Mexican church they preferred in their homeland. He says that his parents coped well in America, with his father keeping steady work, and his mother managing the home, which was situated in what Rodriguez describes as "among gringos, and only a block from the biggest, whitest houses". Although they knew none of their neighbors and routinely struggled to manage daily concerns in a strange language, they had huge families of relatives visiting them from time to time, and a family life immersed in laughter and joy. This is evidence of the consistent efforts of loving parents to provide a lasting heritage that eclipses ethnic or socioeconomic constraints. Unfortunately, halfway through the book, Rodriguez tells us that as he became more and more proficient in English and enlarged his circle of English-speaking friends, he became ashamed of his parents and hated their foreign ways. In the final chapter of the book, we find his mother begging him not to air his disloyalty to and disappointment in his family openly in his writing, but he does not honor her request. This book is all about him, to the very end.

The author continually reminds us of his socially disadvantaged upbringing, the fact that he is the son of "working-class parents". Forgive me if I don't buy into this thinking. He attended private school, for Pete's sake. That costs money. I grew up listening to my parents' stories of the depression, when people were lucky to even have a job, and of life in post-war Germany , where children rifled through garbage cans for food. To this day, my mother keeps her pantry filled with extra cans of food, extra bags of staples such as flour and sugar, all sorts of extra non-perishables, against that kind of want. I went to Florida 's horrendous public schools and my parents couldn't afford to send me to college, so I got Pell grants and Perkins loans and Stanford loans for which I am still paying. So I should feel sorry for him, because he was on scholarship based upon his ethnicity? It is appalling and demeaning the way he calls himself "the scholarship boy" throughout this text. If accepting the funds was so detestable to him, he should have passed the opportunity on to somebody who would appreciate it. In the interest of clearing his conscience, I think from now on, he ought to thank the taxpayers, pay his taxes and pass the help on to the next generation of needy students. Or if he feels that guilty about the financial aid he received, set up a scholarship fund for financially-strapped single parents who are women (the group I fell into as a student) with all the profits he's getting from this book.

Rodriguez also states that he was "victim to a disabling confusion". He hasn't suffered a traumatic brain injury or been diagnosed with early Alzheimer's disease. He is referring to his inability to speak Spanish easily once he became fluent in English. As a speech-language pathologist, I can definitively state that linguistic learning differences don't make a person a victim. To me, Rodriguez's alleged issues with language and intimacy seem disconnected with the issues of bilingual education or affirmative action. In fact, he is such a gifted speaker and writer, that he makes his living using these skills, and is evidently very successful, or I wouldn't be reading this book.

Richard Rodriguez draws the reader into his life as a non-English speaking Mexican trying to cope in American society. The early depictions of his childhood fears caused by the nuns who intimidated him are vivid and endearing. He doesn't fail to state his views on bi-lingual education as well as affrimative action. He is poignant in illustrating his opinions on these issues. He is no longer afraid to speak out on situations that irritate him. Thumbs up to Mr. Rodriguez.

Rodriguez writes about the intimacy of the native tongue. The Spanish language allows him to express thoughts and feelings in ways that the Enlgish language cannot. My feelings are similar when speaking to my parents and grandparents. This book changed my outlook on culture and language and the interplay between the two. I have focused on maintaining tradition that I once saw as unnecessary. I am once again buying this book to keep on my shelves to read and re-read again and again......

Richard Rodriguez's book, Hunger of Memory is an interesting view on the part of Rodriguez about culture. He thoroughly goes through his experiences and his beliefs. It is interesting to read how Rodriguez believes that his past Mexican culture no longer plays an important role for him. This is unfortunate to hear because I believe that culture is important in building an identity for an individual.

In Hunger of Memory, Richard Rodriguez expressed himself as being culturally and publicly alienated. He found himself separated from his family and lost culturally of his Hispanic background. Rodriguez also viewed issues on bilingual education and public alienation. An interesting book overall but might be understood more by those who can relate to Rodriguez.

Andrew Amerson Engl 155 10/1/98
Hunger of Memory, was not a very interesting book. It is not the kind of book that really catches my attention, although it is a good book. Rodriguez did a very good job describing his feelings on affirmative action and bilingual education with great detail. But I still don't see why he had to write a whole book on it. I wouldn't recommend anybody to read this book.

Esteemed a classic, this work has the merit, upon first reading, of making the reader feel he has been initiated into the long lost tribe of truth tellers, something akin to the book readers of Fahrenheit 451. We meet somebody for whom education is a real thing, something that is life changing, enlightening, and it estranges him from his family, and of course from all people, because the sophistication he gains from his education makes him an enemy to the ignorant. Much is lost, but what is gained far outweighs that loss. He knows it, and we get the message. Bravo, Richard Rodriguez.

Richard Rodriguez's "Hunger of Memory" is a fantastic read for someone wondering about the topic of mexican integration into American society, and the "scholorship boy." Scholars and seasoned readers will find this book very insightful and quite educational. I would not recomend that some with faith other than Catholic/Christianity read this book because it is about Rodriguez's growth in his faith and upholds his religion over other religions.

There is absolutely nothing impressive or interesting in this book. Rodriguez relates to us the story of a boy who rejected the traditionally held values of his family, yet failed to assimilate into the dominant society. It should therefore be very uninteresting that he was a successful student because people who do not assimilate well, are likely to excel in school because they have less distractions.

Well-written, informative, and riveting account of the cost of assimilation in an elitist, nativist, and xenophobic American education system from Catholic parochial school to the hallowed halls of Stanford, Columbia, Berkeley, and finally to the British museum. Richard Rodriguez's intellectual autobiography, "Hunger of Memory," informs me of my very own public and intimate narrative, "Sisyphus and the Struggle Within." I understand and feel his loneliness, marvel at his elitist views on language, literature, and affirmative action, applaud his rise and entrance into the American upper middle-class, yet I am stunned by his lack of self- and cultural identity. Rodriguez, like many of us, learns early in his life to deny, erase, or at least minimize the "horrors" of his own Mexican identity and heritage, as he casts his cultural baggage into Angel Island's smoldering furnace. Unfortunately, it is a high price that many of us pay in becoming American. We often lose ourselves, and our cultural and ethnic identities. Why did the very young Ricardo Rodriguez, English equivalent "Richard," have to forfeit his mother tongue and its intimate and enriching sounds and rhythms for English? Why could he not have equally chosen to learn and freely speak both languages? His choice, or perhaps more accurately, the educational system's choice, renders him alien and distant in his own company, in his own family, and even in the quiet solitude of academia and the British museum. Despite the author's arduously attained education and material wealth, he fails to have learned one vital truth- to seek and "hunger for" like religion, his own identity and to adapt and supplement his elitist literary education with a renewed awareness and appreciation for Spanish and Mexican writings. And finally, the sum total, the root of Ricardo Rodriguez's Mexican heritage that which he so desperately tries to hide, surfaces as he and a disgruntled and equally qualified Jewish graduate student vie for a professorship at Yale. `Damn!' . . . You're the one who gets all the breaks. . . You're a Chicano. And I am a Jew. That's really the only difference between us' (p. 170). And it is here where both scholars show their ignorance by redefining and reframing the intent of affirmative action. President Kennedy coined the term "affirmative action" in Executive Order 10925; the original operational definition of affirmative action had nothing to do with quotas but goals, timelines, and planning objectives to enhance management; quotas are illegal because they discriminate and ignore standards; goals do not; goals are levels one hopes to attain and are realistic and attainable with effort. So, the intent of affirmative action is to assimilate and open the doors of equal opportunity to "qualified underrepresented groups" into predominately White Anglo Saxon Protestant male organizations to include America's elite public and private institutions of higher learning.

Poetic and sophisticated. Rodriguez's education changes him to a point of alienation, not only from his family, but from his peers as well. He burns through books at the library with a voracious reading apetite, searching for similar experiences in books to relate to his own feelings.

Rodriguez has a way of expressing his feelings that relate to mine. I wish I had an opportunity to talk to him. If someone reads this and knows a way that I can talk to Rodriguez please e-mail me. There is so much he and I have in common.

Indeed Richard makes some good points about bilingual education and affirmative action - and they ARE well worth noting (how affirmative action doesn't benefit those who need it the most)....but everything else about this book [is bad]. His writing style is very self-absorbed. His opinions are inserted after just about EVERY comment and EVERY action ANYONE (his family or the outside world) commits, it's like he's trying to beat his own opinion into your head. There's also very stuck-up tone lurking under his writing; he VERY often notes his own accomplishments endlessly (...at a cocktail party in Bel Air...entered high school having read 100s of books...), it's all fabulous but reading about his greatness gets very tedious after awhile (especially when he's describing how he started making lists of books he read...that alone is 6 pages - go look yourself: p.59-64.
Many advocates of this book say that they like it because of how he becomes "aware of his assimilation" and "recognizes that with all gain comes some loss." Well, unfortunetely, even though Ricahrd becomes AWARE and RECOGNIZES all these things - he lets everyone know he knows by portraying himself as a suffering hero and a "cosmic victim." By saying he's a "cosmic victim" implies some divinity "choose" him to suffer - as if! He chose to separate himself from his family the minute he decided he repected his teachers more.
And yes, Mr. Rodriguez dedicated his book to his parents - but it's funny how he wrote "For him and her-to honor them." To me, if he hadn't written the "to honor them", I would have though he was writing this book as almsot a cruel parody of them - of what they never could be anything else but what they already were in his world, that they are not as great as he because of their lack of education.
Overall, this book is nothing remarkable, if not very boring. Read for an opinion of affirmative action and biligual education (but ignore the fact HE frequently benefited from both, even he admits that!). Yes, he is educated, intelligent, and perhaps (I wouldn't know) a "provocative speaker"....but his image at the end is not of a strong, modest, "manly" man, but a pathetic figure of a person who wants to comfort himself in the glory of his accomplishments. The overall taste you walk away with this book is not respect for Richard Rodriguez, but pity.

This is truly an amazing work by Richard Rodriguez. He touches on the very nature of personal identity, and how one's public identity interacts with the majority culture.
Rodriguez is definitely a "pocho," but perhaps that is why I, and I suspect many others, relate to him so fully. Hunger of Memory is much more than a coming of age story; it is a journey of self realization and cultural observation.
For anyone who has ever felt a part of two different worlds, yet not fully resembled either, this is the book to read. It compels you to think beyond convention, and search your soul.

Richard, never calls himself Ricardo, shares his "fictional" family life and his growing up years as a youth in catholic school. The reader sees into the study habits of a middle class spanish speaking child who is shy to learn english and become educated. This reader wonders if Richard the Minority Student was just passed along with good grades, all the way to his PhD degree. Everywhere he studies, he is the token brown/chicano minority student. He doesnt realize it until he is in Grad School. Richard has a way with words, that held my interest. I have started reading Days of Obligation. It is an enjoyable read that offers insight into the life of the brown student in middle class white america.

This book doesn't even deserve one star. This was quite possibly the most anticlimactic, redundant, rediculously verbose, and dull book I have ever come in contact with. Richard Rodriguez completely leaves out entire chunks of his life, which are probably the most interesting parts. If the parts of his life he put in the book are the most interesting, I feel sorry for the poor man for not having anything more enrapturing to write about than why he was a "scholarship boy" or whatever the hell it is. He is obsessed about labeling and overanalyzing the littlest things in life like, "why did she pass me the salt with her left hand...am I not good enough for the right? Or perhaps she is left handed, perhaps she has minor arthritus in her right hand. I think I should go more in depth on the causes of arthritus. Yes, I will." Dammit man, shut up. Just get on with it. There's nothing exciting, interesting, sexy, or even mildly intellectually stimulating in this book except for trying to figure out why the hell he wrote this: "Richard (how do you do?) Rodriguez" in the middle of a thought. Yes, I finished the book, and was entirely consumed by the worthlessness of it all.

The title, and dramatic cover picture, drew me to buy this book. My copy is an orange and white hardcover edition, with a layout similar to the one presented here. It's from 1982 and is stamped with the address and name of a local, NY, school.

I think the durable, still mint condition, cover was the best part of the book, along with the first few pages. After getting past the cover, and what seems like might be a good read, the book became horribly repetitive and boring. Over and over, the same issues are rehashed. You wait for a pivotal moment, and none comes.

As such, even if you agree with his beliefs, and, as a person who grew up in a Spanish-speaking household, I don't, you won't be entertained.

As for his ideology, concerning ethnicity, race and language, it's really irrelevant to the issues of acceptance, humanity and success, that he tries to tie it to. If you read the book critically, you'll see that he doesn't really make a case for any of this. If you're Latino, raised in a Spanish speaking household, as I am (Puerto Rican), you'll definitely see that the claims he makes, about language and ethnicity, are untrue and, despite his drawn out writing, go unproven.

I'd call him a cheap, two-bit provocateur, but he never manages to stir anything up, in this bland, boring, shallow-minded piece of drivel.

Richard Rodriguez whines and complains in his book. I have similar experiences. I was born in Mexico. I was reared in America and went to Catholic schools. I have a darker than average complexion. People often ask me what country I was born in just by looking at me, but that did not warp my wife like it seemed to for Rodriguez. I have a friend who went to Stanford, like Rodriguez, on scholarship, but he did not whine about it. I googled Rodriguez and found a published speech where he continues to show weak character. Here is a quote from one of his speeches: "... if you really want to scare the United States of America, all you would have to say to the United States of America is "I'm going to marry you. I'm going to start dating your son." " This is pretty sad and tasteless. Besides showing weak character, Rodriguez is a poor writer. I have never seen so many sentence fragments. At one point in his book he admits he never liked writing when he was in school. It shows. This book is an insult to the Latin-American community from a condescending publisher. We deserve better.

Going beyond his weakness as a writer and as a person, I would say Rodriguez realized his life was inauthentic (re: Heidegger). He was thrown into his life and rebelled at the life he was given (a degree from Stanford, many job offers in spite of incomplete and inferior creditials). He rejected the life for which he was prepared, but he sunk into an unending cycle of complaining instead of creating an authentic life for himself. He needed to find some way of creating a meaningful life for himself. There are many ways to create for yourself a meaningful life. "Achieve Lasting Happiness" by Robert Canright is good book based on the principals of self-cultivation. If Rodriguez had success in creating for himself an authentic life, this book might have had some merit. As it is, it is just sad.

As a Bilingual teacher, I believe immigrant children should learn the basics of schooling in their home language; that way, they will be able to communicate with their parents, and they will earn self confidence. This book shows the lack of communication and self-esteem immigrant children are suffering from, in the United States.

Matt Zepeda English 155 Comp. # 61110 10-01-98
I found the book Hunger of Memory by Richard Ridriguez to be very interesting. Experiences in his life that he talks about in his book helped me to understand situations in my life. Some people may not find this book interesting but its only because they probably can not relate to it. Since I could relate to Rodriguez I found the book to be a great asset to me.