Personal Commentary On The Lives Of People Different From Ourselves

Through the narrative “The Scholarship Boy” I find few turning points that I notice a shift in the demeanor of Richard Rodriguez as well as how I perceive the story. First of all, it is made apparent to me that people acknowledge him for his successes by making remarks such as, “Your parents must be proud” or “How did you manage it? According to the opening paragraphs Rodriguez is seen as a model student. Although this may be true, the first turning point I find suggests otherwise as Rodriguez conveys, “For although I was a very good student, I was also a very bad student…Always successful, always unconfident. Exhilarated by my process. Sad.” This quote changed my perspective of Rodriguez because of the negative emotion he expresses toward his family. By the same token, I recall my sister being an outstanding achiever throughout school, yet, she was similarly depressed as well as annoyed towards me and the rest of our family. This flashback assisted me in relating to Rodriguez’s emotions towards his successes. In the same fashion, I am supplied a grasp of his shift in tone and direction in the narrative.

With all the negative thoughts and feelings about his family, Rodriguez never took the time to repair his relationship with him and his family, because books were very important to him than his family. As Rodriguez begin to separate from his family and culture, his Spanish accent also begin to disappear, which he felt very excited. In the beginning of his article he talked about the first day, he enters the class and could “barely able to speak English” (239). Rodriguez felt that he did not fit in with the rest

Rodriguez begins to become more involved in his classroom by his new grip on the English language. He shares fewer and fewer words with his mother and father. His tone now transforms into guilt. As Rodriguez's public language becomes more fluent, he forgets how to speak Spanish. "I would have been happier about my public success had I not recalled, sometimes, what it had been like earlier, when my family conveyed its intimacy through a set of conveniently private sound.? He begins to break out of the cocoon as a slow or disadvantaged child and blooms into a regular kid in his white society that only uses English. He feels a great sense of betrayal of his Mexican past. His connection that held him so close to his family is destabilized.

Rodriguez lost all connection with his family. He was unable to converse with them he had grown so far apart. Rodriguez felt “embarrassed” to embrace his personal background. He spoke of when his parents came to school and could not not speak English fluently and how it made him embarrassed because he did not want to profess his ethical background.

In the excerpt from The Hunger of Memory Rodriguez faced adversity early on in his life. As a little kid he described himself to be a “socially disadvantaged” child (Rodriguez 1). This was due to the “...extreme public alienation” he and his family faced (Rodriguez 1). Being Native American in today's society makes one stick out like a sore thumb. Discrimination is still very much alive today. Assimilating what it’s like to be any race other than caucasian is a task that we are too inadequate to imagine. Following a passion will in some cases require losing things in return. Instead of pursuing a regular job Rodriguez stuck to writing. When he began this book the “...words wouldn’t come” (Rodriguez 2). The money ran dry and he was “...forced to take temporary jobs” (Rodriguez 2). This sacrifice proved to be nothing to him as writing was his life. His choice to persevere subsequently led him to towns such New York, Los Angeles, and even a cocktail party in Bel Air! With all this being said his works eventually led to non-existent relationship with his parents. This really affects Rodriguez emotionally as he says “the separation I endure with my parents is a loss” (Rodriguez 2). His parents ridiculed his decisions and that ultimately led to the absent relationship.

Rodriguez also shows us that he has gained the “sociological imagination” by writing about his appreciation and understanding

This separation from his family caused a longing in his life. But this longing was superseded by what he suspected his teachers could give him. Rodriguez develops a double personality of sorts. The person he is at home, the polite child who lovingly does what his parents ask of him. And then the academic persona he

Of all the forms of literature, the most interesting might be the fairytales, or the science fiction thriller about robots. However, there lacks the sense of truth, in a way blocking the reader from true connection with the story. Memoir is real, memoir is true, and memoir can range from any end of the ocean in structure and theme.

In Richard Rodriguez autobiography, Hunger of Memory, Richard himself writes about his educational journey. Rodriguez wrote such book in 1982. The book revolves around the life a young immigrant child, whom has a difficult time understanding how to adapt himself in the given environment. Furthermore, the book navigates the readers though Richards transition form boyhood to adulthood. Not only so, but Richard discusses how the opportunities that were presented to him altered his viewpoints in life as well as education.

When reading this autobiography it reminded me of my adolescent years; I remember feeling like I knew all there was to being a grown up, I also felt like my parents didn’t know much because they didn’t go to college. I strongly feel like they could have always done more than they were doing. Upon reading this, I felt as though I was reading Richard Rodriguez’s journal and he was a very unhappy kid living in the ghetto. He was also embarrassed of his own life and he seemed unhappy in his own skin... “(Ways of reading pg.339) A primary reason for my success in the classroom was that I couldn’t forget that success was changing me and separating me from the life I enjoyed before becoming a student”.

To begin with, Rodriguez’s first step to finding his identity began when his parents decided to move to the states to start a new life. At first, he was completely lost because he couldn’t understand the language. However, as time went by his English began to improve with the help of his parents helping him practice English at home. As he becomes more educated, he felt that a distance grew between him and his parents. “Here is a child who cannot forget that his academic success distances him from a life he loved, even from his own memory of himself” (Rodriguez 51). Rodriguez was connected with his family through his private identity. However, his distance with his parents began to appear as he advanced in English. As he starts to become fluent in English, he would talk to his parents less and less. His Spanish skills also started to deteriorate. Spanish is the language that gave him a sense of closeness to his family and is what separated him from the public. However, once he started to develop his public identity, he started losing his private identity. Rodriguez’s parents provided him with his own private identity and help him and supported him in developing his public identity to success.

​The father figure depicted in this story could be viewed in a few different ways. At first I thought the authors father was kind of a stuck up, rude man, who was sour about the advantages of living a normal life in American society. I felt that he had made his son feel like he could never do what he had down. If a parental figure makes you feel like that, there tends to be a reaction. It could be positive or negative. In Rodriguez’s case he took what his father said, and harnessed it into a positive learning experience. When I thought about more in depth, it became clear that Rodriguez’s father wasn’t putting his son down at all. He was simply explaining to his son how different their worlds where. He was stressing that although his son had more opportunity, and was presented with much greater potential to be excellent, that the work he did growing up was much harder, and tough than most people realize. His father was just making it known that in his working years he did not have many options as to career choices. But on the other hand I can easily see why the author felt that his father had challenged him. Much like I felt my father was challenging me. Rodriguez felt like he needed to prove that he could perform the same task that his fathers use to do to provide for their families. Working with you’re your hands, completing messy, strenuous, sometimes painful jobs was almost a part of Hispanic culture. A part of

In his essay “The Achievement of Desire,” Richard Rodriguez has certain ways of speaking and caring. In particular, he focuses on his education and his family. These two will eventually clash and interfere with each other. Rodriguez contrasts school, family, teachers and most importantly himself. He also tells us how left his childhood and family for education, but when he wanted to return he couldn’t fully do so. He learned he couldn't fully return due to his conforming to education that leads him to observe and analyze everything.

During the pinnacle of his bittersweet life, Rodriguez eventually realized that he had sacrificed one of the biggest things in life to do what is best for himself, his family. Being from a different

Christain Villagomez did not meet academic standards due to the birth of his daughter and the separation from his family. He was overjoyed when his daughter was born and devastated when his family moved across the country. This emotional distress interfered with his performance at work and his school studies. Just when he thought he had his family he lost a piece of it.