Rodriguez’s Tale of Growing up in the Minority and on That Influence

Categories: Growing Up

Rodriguez writes Hunger of Memory to share an experience readers can understand,and be educated by growing up as a minority. Rodriguez organizes his book in sections that focus on the different experiences in his life that affected him the most. In chapter 1, Rodriguez focuses on his early years of boyhood,and being a bilingual child “I was reminded by Spanish of my separateness from los otros,los gringos in power” and how “Spanish seemed to me the language of home”(pg 14).

This helps express Rodriguez’s family life and how it started to become more familiar through spanish. He connects with the reader by sharing this personal distinction because he feels like people can relate or learn from what he is conveying. Rodriguez further defines his view on private life “just opening or closing the screen door behind me was an important experience ”( pg 15). By including this line Rodriguez describes the relationship he has with the outside world and his inside world and he uses this statement to inform the reader.

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Rodriguez uses the screen door to create a barrier that splits his two lives and emphasize how being a Spanish speaker in a Spanish household separates him from the public life. Therefore Rodriguez writes the Hunger of Memory to share his experiences growing up to educate the reader.

Rodriguez writes the Hunger of Memory to shares his experiences in a classroom because he wants to send a message. In chapter 2, the achievement of desire, Rodriguez “Proudly announced” to his family “that a teacher had said I was losing all trace of a Spanish accent”, and “I devoted myself to my studies”(pg 47).

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Rodriguez using words like “Proudly announced” he introduces his initial problem growing up when it started that his private life and public like stopped being so distinguished. Rodriguez in this chapter shares his desire to become a student “advancing in his studies, the boy notices that his Mother and father have not changed as much as he”(pg 51). Rodriguez includes this line to show the significant impact of his school life on his private life being the main thing driving a force between him and his parents' relationship. His advancement in his studies expresses his desire to learn and it becoming a “achievement” to others, but a problem to his private life. Education changed his life and as his focus for education increased his focus on the relationship with his family decreased “you should keep up your Spanish” and “ ‘Pochos!’ my mother would tease”(pg 53). Rodriguez mother teased him because his English becomes better than his Spanish and his families language started to become lost to him. Rodriguez uses this line to point out his relationship with his family as being a joke, and the further into his education he got the more it became his reality. His relationship with his family kept undergoing change him becoming more antisocial to them. Therefore Rodriguez writes Hunger of Memory because he wants to share his message using his experience in the classroom.

Rodriguez writes Hunger of Memory to shows the distinction between private and public life because he wants to inform the reader. Rodriguez in chapter 3, takes a more religious approach describing the details of his life and its connection to religion “I grew up a Catholic at home and at school,in private and in public” and growing up “as a Catholic schoolboy”(pg 83). This emphasis on the type of Catholic he is used this specific word choice to separate he school part of his Catholicism from the home part. He uses this because Rodriguez believed “my classmates and I were destined to live in a world very different from that which the nuns remembered in Ireland or my parents remembered in Mexico”(pg 84). This helps understand that his personal experience with religion separates him from the two things he is exposed to the most,the religion he experiences at home and at school won’t be the same religion he understands to be true. This distinction helps Rodriguez build his claim that his purpose for writing is to inform. Rodriguez expresses his religious experience, outlining what specifically separates his family religion from his school religion “in those years when we felt alienated from los gringos, my family went across town every week to the wooden church of Our Lady of Guadalupe”, also stating “I was un católico before I was a Catholic”(pg 86). This helps demonstrate how Rodriguez separates his life’s in his writing by saying he was “un católico”, using Spanish he explains how he symbolically explains how he was a Catholic in private before he became one in Public. This is important to Rodriguez writing because he structures his writing off the idea of his cultural background and how it shaped his education,which shaped the person he became and what motivated him to write. By sharing these personal experiences Rodriguez builds a connection with his readers and an understanding of his struggle becoming caught up in multiple life’s.

Rodriguez writes Hunger of Memory to describe the multiple parts of his life that affected his rise in the American system as a son of Mexican immigrant parents. In chapter 6,Rodriguez gets more in detail about his writing choices and how he came to writing this book “adulthood seemed consumed by memory”(pg 190) and “my reason for writing will be revealed instead to public readers I expect never to meet”(pg 191). This shows Rodriguez developed argument,His choices for using his memories to write because his adulthood is filled with memories of the past. Rodriguez past is his escape from the present and his journey becoming a writer began when he decided to become a student this is revealed in Chapter 5, when his identity became more apparent to him “in a way, it was true. I was a minority. The word, as popularly used, did describe me”(pg 156). This connection is formed throughout the book, Rodriguez structures the book to build up to his understanding for writing in chapter 6. His acceptance of his status in society is also revealed in Chapter 4 “my complexion assumes its significance from the context of my life”(pg 148). This line describes the color aspect of Rodriguez’s life,he shares this experience because it impacts people’s perception of him. As explained in the Chapter “I do not blame my mother for warning me away from the sun when I was young”, he says this to share his isolation being a brown boy and the dangers of being dark. His darkness is important to his development because it affected how he was raised and how he was expected to perform in school m. His life revolved around his cultural background and he explains this to be his portrayal of language, this struggle being what held his progress growing up.

In conclusion, Rodriguez writes Hunger of Memory to reflect on his experiences and how it defined his life and shaped his path to becoming a man. He informs, and persuades to build a connection with the reader as he escapes into his past of alienation.

Updated: Jan 27, 2022
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Rodriguez’s Tale of Growing up in the Minority and on That Influence. (2022, Jan 27). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/rodriguez-s-tale-of-growing-up-in-the-minority-and-on-that-influence-essay

Rodriguez’s Tale of Growing up in the Minority and on That Influence essay
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