Hunger of Memory : The Education of Richard Rodriguez

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Summary: Affirmative Action--What about discrimination?
Review: Forgive me if I overlooked it while reading Hunger of Memory but I dont remember Rodriguez saying anything about cases where racial discrimination is practiced in job interviews or college admissions. If he does have a stance on it(and Im sure he must) I would like to know what it is. I enjoyed the book but havent stopped thinking about that point since. Should affirmative action exist to counterbalance discrimination?

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Summary: "The best book I've read"
Review: 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.

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Summary: Eye-opening novel that captures the readers soul.
Review: Richard Rodriguez magnificently explores the socio-economic and cultural identity of the Mexican American in his book, Hunger of Memory. By examining Mexican Ancestry, social class and education, Rodriquez boldly goes where no Chicano has gone before. This book reveals the struggle of a family, and the reality of his identity. Controversial stances on Affirmative action and Bilingual education, are at the heart of the novel. Although I am not Mexican, I can almost feel the passion and heartache of his struggle through his dialogue and language. Buy the book, and watch your perceptions change.

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Summary: A must-read for anyone
Review: I am not Hispanic, but I live in a largely hispanic community. This book is an excellent detail of the daily life of those who are trying to cope with a foreign community. This was never a large concern of mine because of the type of community I live in. I can see how in other communities racism and social intolerance exist. Excellent book.

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Summary: lyrical,mesmerizing,and deeply,deeply painful!instant clasic
Review: Rodriguez has succeeded in making public a very private pain that all those of us Mexican immigrants feel when we look in the mirror one day only to recognize that we are not as we thought we were. For me, "Hunger's" bells tolled most loudly when it talks about the quiet and agonizing recognition by the college student coming home for summer from college to face his parents who are no longer his parents in that cultural sense; or perhaps they are his parents in the past for admitedly the student is no longer who his parents thought he was who they want him to be. This prompted in me the important realization that is a part of all Mexican immigrant experience in los estados unidos: that our parents very much want us to learn the language and the ways of el gringo, to use them to our advantage to get ahead; but what they failed to tell us, and perhaps what they themselves failed to recognize was that they never intended for us to make that language and those ways OURS. Our immigrant parents can never recognize that with-out that particularly Chicano American experience (understood as a dialectical flow between the Mexican and the "American") we, the children of immigrants--first generation in the public educational system of America--are not ourselves. The book is excellent at bringing out some very hidden inconsistencies and irrationalities of the everyday life of the Mexican in America, but while it advocates an inevitable assimilation as progressive (if painful in the spheres of the family and greater cultural identity) it fails to recognize that for many there is another modus operatus: cultural schizophrenia- in one sphere one must pretend to be "Mexican" as with the parents and the immediate family, and "American" but still not fully "American", so then Chicano in the public spheres of work, school, etc. I highly recommend this book to all those children of Mexican immigrants, and to immigrants themselves who've been a victim of the American public educational system. In fact, it should be required reading at the very latest by high school. If you read the book and only remark "it stinks" or "he's a sell-out" then perhaps you, as I did, have something you cannot yet face- the recognition that you are lost between the two worlds which compete for not only your identity, but your very soul. Rodriguez' position is a very tricky one to grasp, and yes it is difficult because the author is not always linear in his logic, but that is the nature of life, so read it! I read it my first year in college, and hated the author for what he said because it was all (almost all) true; by the last year in college, I wantedto use his book as a foundation for my thesis.Rodriguez has been a pioneer in the experience of the immigrantr child going away to college, and although aI disagree with his conclusions and his fatalist attitude toward his parents and his Mexican culture, I would very much like to meet him and discuss his book. Anybody know where to find him

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Summary: eye opener!
Review: This is a text that many 1st generation Americans will feel an affinity for. Rodriguez reveals the intimacy that exists between immigrant parents and American-born children in the primary language. After reading his book, I understood the closeness that I feel when speaking my parent's language with them. He admits to losing a part of himself during the assimilation process and this book is a must read for teachers who have diverse classrooms to teach to. I plan to use parts of it with students. I think that his experiences are universal at every level.

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Summary: excellent!
Review: Mr. Richard Rodriguez has open a window to all the Hispanics who couln't be considered "Hispanics" before through his writting. He explains how the education might change one's thoughts from one's original ideas inherited by one's cultural heritage, meaning that one never ceases to be physcally a Hispanic but morally and mentally one will break the mold society has forged about one's self. Mr. Rodriguez explains an educated minority could feel allienated from its past, since it many times represented a state of ignorance. His writing might make him sound as a brown Uncle Tom, to a narrow minded person, since he clearly makes abosulte sense for one can not compare one's obscure past to its enlighted present, nor to the past of a one's ancestors since they did not have the knowledge that one has acquire through intense study. Mr. Rodriguez is considered a traitor by many, an assasin of the Latino culture in the US by disapproving of affirmative action and bilingual education, but the only assasins of an ideal American society, where all ethnicities are recognized and respected, are those who insist in keeping their people tied to old values and customs that far from being beneficial, result in harmful pracitices, since their people will be left behind from those who accepted the new culture, and adapt their customs to it. Mr. Rodriguez offers solutions to a question in the Latino community, that not many writers, or intellectuals for that manner, pay attention to, that is, who is a really a Hispanic, the person who goes to the ballet folklorico every time it is in town, or those who fight for a better future for themselves to set the standard for the next generation to overcome? I think he might have all the answers, but to agree or disagree you'll first have to read the book.

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Summary: Everyone with the surname Rodriguez, should read this book.
Review: I read this book and it changed my life. I meet the author at a party and did not like him. But, I still loved his writing and how his work spoke to me.

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Summary: Powerful and deeply moving.
Review: 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.

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Summary: growing up as a minority
Review: In the book Hunger of Memory, a boy struggles to find his true identity while growing up in a middle class neighborhood in Sacramento California. Richard Rodriguez grew up in a Mexican household where he felt unease as time progresses because of cultural difference of his public and private life. His parents emigrated from Mexico to the United States and worked hard in order to supply Richard and his siblings better life. When Richard began going to school, he barely spoke because of his English limitations. As time passed by Richard was expose to wide varieties of books and became very educated and formed his own opinions. Richard is very self-reserve, never open up conversations with his parents or even shares his achievements in school. He grew being ashamed of his parents' lack of education and his Mexican background. He struggled to find harmony between his public and private identity crisis.

In the beginning of the book I was excited to read about a minority, like myself, go through difficulties of trying to assimilate into a different culture. As the story of Richard Rodriguez's life goes on I find myself really bored and upset in way he approach his difficulties. There are instances where he just talks about how well he does in school, his achievements and so forth, but I felt that none of them is really relevant because I already know he's very intelligent. I feel that he's very conceited and egotistical in way of how showed his success in life. As I read his book, it seems that he is trying to make his readers feel sorry for him. He took his culture very for granted and totally cut off his cultural roots to assimilate into a dominant society. While he's growing up, he had no pride on his background whatsoever and disregarded others who are around him especially his family. I think his message is for him to be looked at differently and not as a minority but I fail to understand his views.