Hunger Of Memory Summary

In Hunger of Memory, Richard Rodriguez situates his individual experiences with education in such a way as to expose what he sees as the fallacious logic behind bilingual education and affirmative action. He uses arguments to propagate the systematic problems with such programs. His autobiography explains in great detail the entangling problems all American children face by instituting bilingual programs and affirmative action endorsements.

Culture is a key aspect of a human that reflects on their lifestyle, family, traditions and pulls together the external influences that play a role in how one chooses to live their life. For me, culture is something you collect throughout your lifetime. In my lifetime, I have been lucky enough to travel outside of the United States and meet people from all over the world. I have seen how people go about their daily routines in many different ways compared to mine. The main cultural influence that has been present in my life since day one is the closeness of my family. All my cousins are very close it has often odd when I hear about families with weak relationships and small size. Another influence that has shaped my behavior was my exposure of extreme poverty and extreme wealth while living in Mexico. Lastly, a cultural influence that has shaped my belief system is my education.

Nobody ever gets remembered for displaying uniformity in their race, culture, and actions. Too often in today's society are people scared to pursue their passion due to the stereotypes assigned by normal people. In the excerpt from The Hunger of Memory, by Richard Rodriguez, and the short story “Superman and Me”, by Sherman Alexie both authors face situations where they have to make a choice to stand out or concur to the stereotypes associated with each of their cultures. While the excerpt from The Hunger of Memory discusses the difficulties of sticking out as an intelligent Indian man and “Superman and Me” discusses the hardships of not adhering to normal Indian standards as a kid growing up, likewise both stories share a theme of overcoming hardships and eventually helping others.

Many individuals from another culture strive to live the “American Dream.” In the excerpt from the novel, The Hunger of Memory by Richard Rodriguez, he leaves Mexico to become a middle-class American man and further his education. Sherman Alexie writes “Superman and Me,” which shows how Alexie, a Spokane Indian, teaches himself American literature. Both of these stories intertwine to show how different cultures step out of their own and try to live the American Dream. This leads the audience wondering if culture affects how far individuals go in life? Whereas Alexie describes the ideology of an American Dream as an Indian young boy teaching himself how to read from comic books, Rodriguez describes the ideology of American Dream by escaping Mexico to seek higher education in America.

All things considered, we believe that ones culture may or may not inform the way he or she views others and the world around them. Some people do let their culture inform the way he or she views others and the world around them as shown in the story "An Indian Fathers Plea" by Robert Lake. Though many people do not let their culture inform the way he or she views others and the world around them as shown in the story "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker with Dee straying from how she was raised. Yet those are just a few people who do or don't let their culture inform them about the world or others. Everyone is different and people should understand that yes some people do use their culture for information about things, but many people this days

Cultural bias is something that develops over time. First it "points out differences among cultural groups ranging from social values, rules of conduct, taboos, and beliefs, to language, ethnicity, race, socioeconomic status, and more" (Gilstein, 2016, para. 2). Then it incorporates these judgments into decision making and behavior, resulting in unfair treatment of those viewed as different. Bias can be both explicit and implicit, intentional and unintentional.

Traditionally we might see culture as evolving ethnicity but it involves all sorts of factors like language, sexual orientation, disability, gender, age, class, education level, where you grew up, religion and other cultural dimensions.

Richard Rodriguez?s essay, Hunger of Memory, narrates the course of his educational career. Rodriguez tells of the unenthusiastic and disheartening factors that he had to endure along with his education such as isolation and lack of innovation. It becomes apparent that Rodriguez believes that only a select few go through the awful experiences that he underwent. But actually the contrary is true. The majority of students do go through the ?long, unglamorous, and demeaning process? of education, but for different reasons (Rodriguez, 68). Instead of pursuing education for the sake of learning, they pursue education for the sake of job placement.

“Culture is sometimes described as a lens through which we view the world, meaning that one’s culture influences their perceptions and interactions in everyday life” (Davis, 2006). Every culture has different beliefs and customs

Breaking the Barriers Why are people treated differently, solely based on the language that they speak? Why should governmental parties go out of their way to ban a language just because they don’t understand it? Why do we as the people of this world have the right to be able to speak in the language we choose, if we’re going to constantly attempt to prevent Bilingualism? Martin Espada, a poet and former Latino rights activist, responds to these questions in favor of bilingualism, constantly being attacked by people against bilingualism. while Richard Rodriguez in his book, Hunger of Memory, responds as if to support the prevention of bilingualism.

Define culture: Culture refers to beliefs, values and norms of a group of people from a particular ethnic or cultural background. Even though each culture has their unique characters, but there are elements common to all human cultures. By definition, this is what we call “cultural universal”. For instance, fear of supernaturals, food, clothing, money, education etc. There are ethnocentric people, who believe that their culture or ethnic group is superior to all others. The Nazi Germany back in 1931 wanted to transmit the idea that the German race were of a superior race than all races around the globe. More often than not this kind of cultural globalization can create conflict and tension among nations.

Sometimes I question if culture changes who you are. I try to pull up memories of the decisions I make, are they affected by my culture? Here is the response I came up with: Culture sporadically informs how an individual sees the world because, even being from completely different places and raised in contrasting households, people could still have similar views based on what they think of others and not how you are constructed with your culture, however, sometimes affects your perspective in certain occasions in circumstances where you wouldn’t face a community the same if you weren’t from the culture you were built in. This idea is supported by the personal essay by Bharati Mukherjee, Two Ways to Belong in America, the essay by Robert Lake, An Indians Father Plea, and also personal experience.

Several factors affect the formation of one’s culture, Palispis, E. (2007) quoted Sir Edward Tylor, “Culture… refers to that complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, arts, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as member of society.” (Palispis, E., 2007) In this context culture is something we acquire from the people we have lived with since we were born, it is not something a person can learn overnight nor can be disposed effortlessly.

People have the ability to change their culture or take it at face value and follow it without much change. Culture is also influenced, by society, people that follow it, and the values people have learned and follow.

The world has millions of people of diverse cultural backgrounds. They have their own beliefs, food habits, art forms, and dressing styles. Since ancient times, these people are coming across each other and are exchanging their ideas. However, sometimes people turn hostile because of their cultural prejudices. This tendency to judge the other people based on the standards of his or her own culture is cultural bias. It is a major hindrance in performing a cross-cultural research. A person who is culturally biased ignores the differences that exist between his own culture and other cultures. Cultural bias can stereotype a culture. When a person says his cultures superior to others, he is undoubtedly culturally biased. Such a person never appreciates