Summary Of The Hunger Of Memory By Sherman Alexie

The American dream is an example of a national spirit that represents different ideologies. The set of ideas may be of democracy, equality matters, liberty, rights, and opportunities. The American dream believes in freedom for prosperity and success for its citizens. The idea suggests that upward social mobility for individuals can be achieved only through hard work. In a story done by George Saunders, the American dream is exemplified in several instances. The author, George, tells the story of contemporary America through a diary. The main character in the story is a father to three daughters. The family’s struggles are examples of how individuals will go extra miles just to provide for their families and also

Richard Rodriguez's Hunger of Memory The universal "growing pains" that all children experience in one form or another are easily recognized in Richard Rodriguez’s autobiographical excerpt from Hunger of Memory. Rodriguez’s childhood was particularly unique given the fact that while he was born and raised in the United States, he was strongly influenced in the ethnic environment of a Spanish family. Although the reader is introduced to only a short excerpt from the autobiography, he learns a great deal about Rodriguez’s family and his relationship to it, his conflict of speaking English versus Spanish, and the paradox that became evident as he used English as his primary language.

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.

Growing up from a different culture, Richard Rodriguez looks back on his experience on how he faced the situation as the child of Mexican immigrants. According to his 1982 memoir, “Hunger of Memory”, Rodriguez uses his own observation “to argue that if the children of immigrants are to succeed in the United States, they must separate themselves from their home culture and immerse themselves in the English oriented atmosphere of the American school” (980). In “Aria”, Rodriguez has created an autobiographic essay of his childhood. In his essay, the author is against bilingual educators, who believe that children in their first years of school should be educated in their native language. According to Rodriguez this education method is wrong, it won’t be helpful, therefore children should be knowledgeable in the same language as the public one. The author’s main point is to strongly motivate children of immigrant parents to adopt English as their primary language in order to comprehend public society and have a better future.

The theme of separation is an important development in the novels Hunger of Memory and How the Garcia Girls lost their Accent. The novels deal with separation differently. For Hunger of Memory by Richard Rodriguez, the separation allows Richard to move from the private world to the public world. Here, separation is a movement for a solution, which is citizenship. In How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accent by Julia Alvarez, the separation is an effect from Antojo.

Working hard is the key to success. This struggle for success is most commonly called the “American Dream.” The aspect of the American Dream has been around forever and is often the underlying theme in many pieces of American literature. The theme of the American is especially presented in Of Mice and Men written by John Steinbeck, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Two Kinds writer by Amy Tan, and in “Sophistication” by Sherwood Anderson.

The concept of the American Dream has been present in the lives of many since the beginning of American literature’s arrival

Merton proposed that an individual’s background factors impact whether he or she would consider the American Dream as what they strive for in life. Because many citizens do indeed wish to achieve the American Dream, Merton would argue that culture leads individuals to act in certain, specific ways (Lecture 9/28/15). Merton additionally proposed that culture impacts the ways in which an individual achieves the American Dream, which for the purpose of example in this essay, is the end goal. He determined that there was indeed a relationship

In the novel Hunger of Memory, Richard Rodriguez demonstrates the negative impacts that occur when two cultures bash together. Growing up as a young Mexican American in a foreign society forced Rodriquez to adapt to a new culture. Through self-education of reading, writing, and other learning styles Rodriguez quickly became acclimated with this new society, and over a long period of time he’d learn to fall in love with it. Unfortunately, this new profound love for a different culture introduced many chaotic situations. Rodriguez was now forced with a moral dilemma whether he should rid his old Hispanic culture or continue living through the new one. Many times, throughout the novel Rodriguez describes a series of situations that display these two cultures colliding together and duking it out. Overall, Rodriguez wants to show his audience the negative consequences that appear when multiple cultures clash together, but we can use Marry Louise Pratt’s idea of contact zones “Spaces were culture’s meet, clash, and grapple, with each other…” (Pratt 34) to learn from various experiences, and hoping to advance ourselves as people

Cultural myths affect people the way of look at the world, so it helps people to understand the way we think. In fact, the author discusses that the American dream provides to American an enormous power to success. Because the immigrants came to the “New World” since four hundred ago, they had a lot of individual opportunity to work hard and success their dream even they were in low-paying job. They believe that the culture myths can change the life they live. Also, the culture myths can aspire to struggle with difficulty, and American believes American dream is the foundation of success. However, the culture myths shape the way of being critical thinker.

The origins of the American Dream are deeply intertwined with American history and are strongly connected with what it means to be an American. The American Dream has roots from the original colonists combining a blend of puritan and protestant ideals. It is symbolic of the shift from Europe to America, “the modification of the old European values and their distillation in order to found a new (perfectible) society, the American one” (Ştliliuc 2). And the American work ethic can also be described as “elements of hard work – typically meaning both physically taxing and over long hours with little or no time for leisure, pride in work and a job well done, an orientation toward achievement as well as acquired wealth, along with frugality, thrift, and wise investment” (Porter 3). A strong work ethic is seen through the Younger family with all members working hard laborious jobs daily, but with lack of opportunity due to discrimination and other factors. The source of the American Dream is eurocentric, and these ideals as a culture were forming when blacks in the colonies were still considered as property and thus “the American dream might mean something completely different than for the Afro-American deprived of his freedom and individual rights” (Ştliliuc 4). The foundation of the American Dream is quite white, and the family struggles to see themselves within this dream.

The “American Dream”, an idea that success, freedom and equality exists according to each man's capabilities regardless of social status and ethnicity, is one that appeals to every American from all walks of life. After the Great Depression, the importance of realizing success, freedom and equality became a priority in the lives of many, including the Native Americans. The belief in the “American Dream” was deeply embedded in their hearts in a quest to dispel stereotypes about their community such as being poverty- stricken and primitive warriors who belonged in the

The term “American Dream” has becoming relative based upon what side of the compass an individual stands. Once upon a time, it was defined strictly based on wealth and height on the social ladder. As aforementioned, education is no longer a restricting factor when determining the outlook on someone 's future; but it is also a motivator and a distinct aspect in many people’s own definition of their American Dream. Not everyone seeks to live in the United States to become wealthy by looting from others through way of employment, as hinted at by parochial Americans. Some come to the United States to escape crime, political unrest, religious persecution; and often pursue a greater education than can be provided in

Being a minority in today’s society is quite challenging, as Richard Rodriguez and Sherman Alexie portray in their stories “The Hunger of Memory” and “Superman and Me”. Both of the authors are men who’ve come from the “lower class” or the minority classes. Both of them come from the supressment and stereotyping of their people. They have lived with more than what most Americans (the white population) may every live with. The points stressed in both stories are assimilation into American society as a minority and how it conformed them from now they started the journey. Even though Rodriguez and Alexie have similar focal points on the topic of American assimilation, the two authors derive their stories from two different perspectives as both have different experiences, but the same influential impact on their lives.

Americans have created this idea of accomplishment and nationalism known as the American Dream. This Dream has become a way for Americans to push themselves to work harder so that they can reach this goal, this Dream. In his epistolary memoir Between the World and Me, author Ta-Nehisi Coates explains that “The Dream is treehouses and the Cub Scouts. The Dream smells like peppermint but tastes like strawberry shortcake” (11). The problem with this so called American Dream, though, is that not all Americans can attain that Dream. Coates shows the reader that the American Dream is only attainable for this group of “Dreamers,” that the American Dream is about privilege. America has only kept the Dream in the view of the Dreamers, meaning that not all Americans can or will be able to attain the Dream in their life time.