Hunger of Memory book review

Hunger of Memory book review

Education is a rightful element of change that builds the difference and creates an understanding and rift between the conservative and enlighten. Many children who accept the new education mostly in learning a new language get assimilated into it. It later would be seen a world apart from their natives. They would argue for the different view from their natives. The situation becomes even worse when they feel different in their own homes, and the parents fail to have the impact they should have on the development of the child. They would have more of their time inclined to their teachers’ ideas and guidance than they would for their parents. The rift makes them lose the understanding of what their parents wan of them and later feel a distant apart from their roots.

Rodriguez, in his book “Hunger of Memory” takes a more significant step and one that changed all definition of his alienation to a specific community. He finds himself assimilated with the new system of the English speaking community that his early childhood seems a different world. In his early career, he had a job offer on which he rejected based on the idea that the job was based on the minority concept. Rodriguez opts for other jobs, going for essayist job and even becoming an editor at one point. The rift with his community is even worse as it gets deeper into his family. He considered her mother of lesser understanding of the English language and the father of lesser understanding of the situations at hand.

Rodriguez journey from the scholarship boy to Mr Secrets emanates with his concept of learning English. During his childhood, he would find the different languages discernible. He could speak only a few English words and was very quiet since he never knew the language. He writes about his father being shy speaking in English but being outspoken when using Spanish, makes the picture more vivid. In his first days in school, he could not speak, and that was a more significant concern for his teachers who challenged the family members only to use English at home. The change brought in a more significant difference. At first, it was a bigger task using English but later progressed to becoming very comfortable using the language. At that time, the life of Rodriguez of being a scholar boy began.

The description of him being a scholarship boy is one of a contradiction of disdain and acceptance. It is a disdain on the part of memorization of the concepts and an acceptance as the path to the establishment of clear thinking and making one owns the decision. In most of the education system involved sitting in class and memorizing concepts. The students mostly learned of the new language and conformed to what is held in books. According to Rodriguez, learning a new language was satisfying. However, the increased learning created a gulf between the families where the family members became increasingly quite. The situation worsens when Rodriguez and his siblings go to a further school. The mother notices of the full separation developed with the children and became concerned.

The life of Rodriguez comes to secrets when he could not express his concern in his private life. The education life and the long distances away from home had in them the stored memories of the father seeing him as weak and the stored concept of being black. Rodriguez does not see his colour in the sense of identity bu as a reason for rejection by the women. In the many secrets, Rodriguez harbours family secrets in which he is prohibited to discuss to the outside world. The mother writes to Rodriguez when he writes about the family secrets calling him the secret man. Though education created a gulf between him and the family, he states that it made him become a man.

Themes of Rodriguez Life

Childhood

Rodriguez covers a considerable portion of the book discussing his childhood and his transformation to adulthood. He is the third child in a family of four children, two of either sex. The parents are middle-class Mexican immigrant who came to America in search of new pasture. The father came to pursue engineering, which never happened. The parents later started evening classes which the father dropped and later kept waiting for the mother after evening classes.

Rodriguez had lived two different childhoods and termed it as awkward having to live his private family life and the public life he had outside the household. Before joining the school, the family had Spanish as the preferred language. He hardly answered the question in English in class and never had any prolonged English conversation. After the visit of the nuns who challenged the parents to communicate with their children often in English, he became more confident in school and his public identity. Rodriguez tributes are learning English with aiding him to become an adult. However, he bemoans that his family life does not hold the same feeling it had earlier. He and his siblings became distant from their parents speaking less, making the house quieter. He would look more toward the teacher for the role models. While he feels proud of his achievement in school, he also feels guilty for having moved away from his parents. Moreover, he feels guilty of the family stopping to use English.

Education

Rodriguez holds education in high regards and even credits education for making him become an adult. Moreover, he appreciates education for making him have the voice and understand the struggle. However, Rodriguez realizes also that education has been the key to the gulf that exists within his family. He even laments that the house became quieter as they did not find it comfortable speaking to their parents.

He writes proudly about his academic success, including graduating from Columbia University and the years at Stanford University. Further a post-graduate work in the University of California and Fulbright fellowship research in London. Rodriguez downplays his student achievement as mere memorization. He takes the achievement as a scholarship boy was due to his memorization ability and not the intellectual strength. However, he defends the teaching system by the nuns at the catholic schools he attended by arguing that the students must learn what is known before engaging in broader thinking and creativity.

Race and Ethnicity

Rodriguez was aware of his skin colour even as a child and knew he looked different from the other children and especially the whites in the neighbourhood. He claimed that out of all his family members, he was the darkest skin tone. His father pointed to him as the race, but for him, it made him look ugly that women would reject him. In his younger years, the aunt used to try some of the concoctions to make the skin look lighter than he now. The mother even laments that he should not take too much time in the sun as it would make him look like the los probes, the poor and powerless or los braceros, the men who laboured outside for the whole day. In his rejection of the affirmative action, the others claimed he was a traitor to his people. In his childhood, he had very few racial slurs directed towards him and where he heard he would be stunned to reply. However, he is appreciative of what the present-day offers. When he visits a nice hotel or a cocktail party, people would assume he is on vacation and ask him if he ever thought of high fashion modelling.

Alienation and assimilation

Rodriguez is a believer in the assimilation of the immigrant coming to America. He fails to understand those that are within the country and do not want to be part of the free society. and claims that people do not lose their identity by becoming part of the free society. He is against the bilingual education that campaigned for the teaching of the children using their language and distanced himself from the Chicano intellectuals.

The Role of Language

Rodriguez family used Spanish for communication and considered English the language of the gringos. During this time he felt relieved when he was back at home. It was until he started learning English that he became comfortable. English became the language that he grew to love but regrettably with the consequence of thinning the communication within his family members. His extended family was concerned with his faltering Spanish language. However, he felt the relatives were mistaken by believing that they can only language connects them.

Catholicism

In the essay credo, Rodriguez addresses his life as a catholic. His early life was all about the catholic beliefs. He claims that his life as the altar boy taught him the full spectrum of life. He also notes that life was saturated with the catholic feature, including pictures of Jesus in every class to nuns who were his teachers. However, he notes that it wakes everything until he left home for Stanford University. However, the Catholicism did not end with going to the university. Still, in his adulthood, he is practising catholic.

Nonetheless, the liturgy changes resulting from the second Vatican conference in the 1960s distanced him to the church. Inclusion of vernacular and masses he felt the church is no longer controlled by the priests but by the congregation. However, he still clings on and states that though the changes make him unsatisfied, he fears giving it up.