Poem Essay : The Achievement Of Desire By Richard Rodriguez

Writer Gregory Mantsios in his article “Class in America”, talks about these things, and how wide the gap is between the rich and the poor and also discusses how the rich continue to get richer, while the poor continue to get poorer. Mantsios gives his readers the profiles and backgrounds of three hard-working Americans, two of them are white males, whose family background as well as education played a role in their success, while the other person is a black woman who is just above the poverty line despite her work as a nurse’s aide. Through these profiles, Mantsios article shows exactly how sex, race and shows how your parental and educational background of a person can play a role in the things that you achieve. Mantsios also talks about one’s performance in school and the level of school completed can suggest whether or not class that person may belong in.

In the chapter 2 of the book Hunger of Memory: “The Achievement of Desire” by Richard Rodriguez, he talks about how he attains academic success in expense of the life he used to love prior to stepping in school. Rodriguez starts his education having little to no knowledge of speaking English but with sufficient support of his parents and the parochial school in which he learns to do grammar, he later finds himself studying at British Museum. However, he argues that he achieves his success because of being a scholarship boy. He describes himself as an enthusiastic student and unconfident, opposite to his siblings, but his enthusiasm to learn became problematic at home as he starts to see the dissimilarity between home and school and when he is unable to receive academic help from his parents. Thus, force him to adapt and commit himself to study, he starts to read book to isolate himself at home. His persistent to learn became the reason to lose his balance between the two worlds he lives in. Rodriguez admits “A primary reason for my success in the classroom was that I couldn’t forget that schooling was changing me and separating me from the life I enjoyed before becoming a student” (2).

For generations African Americans have been disadvantaged in America and effects of these injustices have made a lasting impression. Education is one of the leading problems in the black community. Though there have many reforms in education over the years, racial injustices still exist because no attention in placed on how legislature affects people of color. I was raised in a middle-class family of educators. My entire life I’ve been told to “stay in school, get an education, and work hard so that you can beat the system.” Recognizing the structural forces in my life has helped me understand my place in society. Being able to “understand everyday life, not through personal circumstances but through the broader historical forces that

Education is a wonderful asset to anyone. With a good one the sky is the limit, and without one opportunity may never come knocking. In today’s society, so much emphasis is put on education. How many times have we heard the saying “if you get a good education, you’ll get a good job and make a lot of money”? Even today, my parents remind me of how much a college degree would add to my marketability. But when does it become too much? Is it possible that one could overlook the more important values in life in search to become a “learned man”? In Richard Rodriguez’s story Challenging The Traditional Classroom he examines his life as a student, and the affects his learning has towards his attitude about family and heritage.

There will always be those who strikes their hardest to learn even though others downgrade them. In the essay “Super Man and Me” Sherman Alexie explains what happen in his personal life while he was still at school. Alexie is an Indian boy who loves to read ever since he was a little child. “A little Indian boy teaches himself to read at an early age and advanced quickly” (497). However the non-Indians expected less from the Indians kids. They expect them to be stupid and uneducated. Nevertheless Alexie refuses to fail, he was a very smart boy who kept on teaching himself. Alex proved the non-Indians wrong by becoming a writer. This is a claim of value because, most of the time people expect less from us based on our nationality and race, but it is our obligation to prove them wrong; our future does not depend on what others think of us, but how hard we strike to have a better future. I too can relate to the essay Super Man and Me because of my teacher in Junior High also expected less from me and also treated me differently base on my nationality.

Beginning her paper with a brief overview of her life growing up in poverty; Beegle shows the reader a firsthand account of how heartbreaking these circumstances are. Revealing that “no one was educated beyond the eighth grade” and “subsisted on menial-wage employment and migrant work”, her family was stuck in the seemingly endless cycle of generational poverty (11). This approach is used to evoke emotion and capture the attention of the readers, allowing the author to more easily begin educating them on the adversity faced by children in poverty. When Beegle did attend college, she describes feeling “fear, humiliation, and insecurity” brought on by the negative interactions with her professors (11). It’s not until she

Education is an important aspect in the lives of many individuals. Education is often seen as a means to better oneself. With education, a whole new world can be opened up to individuals. For African Americans education is key to achieving a variety of things in life. During the days of slavery, African Americans were not allowed to be educated. It was frowned upon and strictly discouraged because slave masters knew that they could not dominate an educated person. Any slave caught trying to read or write was punished. There are many individuals whose main purpose is to fight for the rights and equality of African Americans and fighting for the right to be educated was one of these goals. African Americans alike wanted to be educated because they know it would lead to progress and a better overall situation. Now in today’s society we see that even though many before us has fought for the right to be educated some do not see it as a privilege. In this paper, the views of Malcolm X, W.E.B. DuBois and Oliver Cromwell Cox will be examined in regards to their thoughts on education.

In the essay “Black and Middle Class”, written by Shelby Steele, Published in “Readers for Writers” book, in 2014, Shelby uses Logos, Pathos, and Ethos to explain how being black and Middle class can have several effect on the black person who is trying to achieve the class ,but have to take his race in the matter.

The best way to learn the different views of a scholarship boy from Rodriguez and Hoggart is by analyzing the way Rodriguez used in his article the “Achievement of Desire” and Richard Hoggart the Uses of Literacy to combine his experience of the scholarship boy’s story. When Rodriguez gives his life story he talks about Hoggart’s opinion which the men in a school is more influence but family affects children more warmly which was described by Rodriguez. A scholarship boy must be able to adapt between the two environments of his home and that of the classroom. Rodriguez uses Hoggart’s writing about the problems from school to explain what the scholarship boy

In the Education of the Black Bourgeoisie, money was a huge significance with the Black families. The Negro’s were no longer devoted to the aspects of Education but more to the ideal that having money put you in another bracket or place away from other people. It gave the idea that if you had money then you were considered to be in the middle class status. As Franklin Frazier stated, “that Negro higher education has become

Everybody loves a good success story. When the underdog, usually a lower class high school age student, defies the odds and comes out on top, beating his circumstances to get where nobody thinks he should go, everyone goes crazy for it. So crazy that Hollywood gets in on the act, with movie productions such as The Blind Side, Life of A King, and Slum Dog Millionaire. Sadly, these stories are not commonplace, in fact, they are very few and far between. More often than not, students from lower class families struggle to get by, as a result putting school to the back burner. Less than 75% of students in lower income households graduate high school, and even fewer go onto college (http://nces.ed.gov). From this group, excuses began to come out, the main reason underlies them all; they have become a product of their circumstance. The position they were in restrained them, forcing only one path, a

After correctly pronouncing a series of difficult words from a book, Pauli Murray distinctly remembers her grandfather reply “that will do. That’s pretty good for a little girl. You may make a fine scholar some day if you keep at it.” Since those early days of colorful memories, education always served as a source of empowerment for Pauli—not only as a budding reader, but as an educated African-American female coming of age in the Jim Crow South.

Education was the key to one’s social status and was revered as such. We live in the United States of America, the poster boy of socio-economic freedom and capitalism. Here, the idea is that anyone can work their way up from the lower to upper class; many call it “rags to riches.” One of our founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, was famously able to do so and become one of the leaders of the “New World”. However, this class progression is conditional. Hard work is required. No one knows how many hours Franklin spent studying, learning, calculating, working before his success. As such, I aspire to similarly transcend my surroundings as a first-generation immigrant and become a successful individual. However, this requires determination and grit. It also requires a good education. Education is the key to socio-economic success and upward social mobility. It is the key to advancing one’s status in life and Dr. Wilson recognized this. He also recognized the lapse in the American education system when it came to understanding and appreciating the work of the African population now residing in America. Surely enough, his work would have been mentioned in a history book had this foul system of white-washing and mass-producing falsified and fabricated portions of our history been

In terms of how being educated will change the relationship of the educated and the family, this is seen in two different aspects. The Negro John had to work hard for his opportunity at education; He was full of aspiration to provide change for other children in his community. The Caucasian John was given his education, with the expectation to come back to the same town and become mayor. This essay shows a yin and yang relationship, meaning that while one John only wants to help his racial community, the other John wants nothing more than to move on to bigger and better things in life than to deal with negro individuals.

Our education system is perhaps one of the most complex institutions in the United States. Students are taught to be their most authentic selves but yet are told to think a certain way. In reality, students really don’t have the freedom to be their genuine identity. Our society tells us that a typical student speaks the language, excels in all areas of study, and loves to read. Children who do not fit this mold are often at a disadvantage and do not attain the same acceptance. In the essay, “Achievement of Desire” Richard Rodriguez was a first generation immigrant from Mexico. His parents spoke little English, and had no education. Automatically, his family is an outcast. Throughout Rodriguez’s schooling career he learned to fit the perfect mold of the “typical” American student. He finds himself to be in an internal struggle between social versus family isolation, authenticity and finding his place in the American society.