Childhood
A large part of Hunger of Memory explores Rodriguez’s early years and his path to becoming an adult. He is the third child in a family of middle-class Mexican immigrants living in Sacramento, with two sisters and one brother.
Rodriguez describes his childhood as "awkward," mainly due to the tension between his private family life and his public life outside the home. Before the age of seven, Spanish was the primary language spoken in his family. He felt uneasy answering questions in English during class and dreaded any conversation that went beyond simple words. However, after three nuns from his school asked his parents to speak only English with their children, his world started to expand. Rodriguez soon became less timid at school and grew "increasingly confident" in his public image.
While Rodriguez admits that learning English was crucial for his development, he regrets that speaking English at home reduced the family's closeness. The communication between him, his siblings, and their parents lessened, and the household became quieter. Over time, Rodriguez began to see his teachers as role models. Although he took pride in his academic achievements, he also felt guilty for becoming more distant from his parents. Additionally, he sometimes felt embarrassed by his parents' imperfect English, which added to his feelings of guilt.
Education
Rodriguez believes that his education was vital in his transition to adulthood. Yet, he recognizes that this very education created a gap between his past and present identity. He no longer communicates with his parents as effortlessly as before, but he credits his education for helping him comprehend and express this internal conflict. Rodriguez states, "If, because of my schooling, I had grown culturally separated from my parents, my education finally had given me ways of speaking and caring about that fact."
Rodriguez proudly recounts his academic milestones, such as spending four years at Stanford University, earning a graduate degree from Columbia University, pursuing further studies at the University of California at Berkeley, and receiving a Fulbright Fellowship that enabled him to study John Milton at the British Museum in London.
Despite his impressive academic record, Rodriguez minimizes these achievements by describing his efforts as mere memorization. He acknowledges, "I had been submissive, willing to mimic my teachers, willing to re-form myself in order to become 'educated.'" As a "scholarship boy," he admits that much of his success stems from his memorization skills rather than a deep intellectual capacity. Nonetheless, he defends the teaching methods of the nuns in the Catholic schools he attended, arguing that students must first absorb established knowledge before they can engage in independent thinking and creativity.
Race and Ethnicity
From an early age, Rodriguez was keenly aware of his skin color and how it differentiated him from other kids in his mostly white neighborhood. He claims to have the darkest skin tone in his family. As a child, his aunts often applied different concoctions to his face in hopes of lightening his complexion, and his mother warned him against spending too much time in the sun to prevent his skin from getting even darker. She feared he might end up like "los pobres," the poor and powerless, or "los braceros," men who worked outdoors all day.
Rodriguez remembers encountering very few racial slurs during his childhood, and when he did, he was so taken aback that he couldn't respond. Nowadays, he is fascinated by the reactions his skin color prompts at high-end hotels or sophisticated cocktail parties. People often assume he has been on vacation or ask if he has thought about pursuing "high fashion modeling."
Catholicism
In his essay "Credo," Rodriguez...
(This entire section contains 252 words.)
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reflects on his Catholic upbringing. Catholicism played a significant role in marking the passage of time during his early years, particularly at the local parochial schools he attended. He recalls pausing classes to walk to the church for prayer sessions, the presence of Jesus’ images in every classroom, and dedicating his homework to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Serving as an altar boy at weddings, funerals, and other major events provided him with exposure to the full spectrum of life's experiences. "Experienced in public and private, Catholicism shaped my whole day," he writes, highlighting how it influenced every moment of his life until he left home for Stanford University.
As an adult, Rodriguez continues to practice Catholicism, albeit with some hesitations. The liturgical reforms introduced by the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s have made him feel more disconnected from the church. In a 1995 interview with Paul Crowley in America, Rodriguez criticized the "theatrical hand-shaking and the fake translations that characterize the vernacular Mass." In his book, he comments that these changes stem from the credo, the portion of the Mass where the profession of faith is made, now recited by the entire congregation instead of only the priest. He believes this has fostered a false sense of community, "no longer reminding the listener that he is alone." Despite his longing for the Catholic Church of his youth, he remains connected to it. "Though it leaves me unsatisfied, I fear giving it up, falling through space," he confesses.
Assimilation and Alienation
Rodriguez strongly believes that immigrants to the United States should integrate into American society. He contends that promoting separation from public life for non-native Americans is a disservice, as it fails to recognize that participating in public society does not erase one's unique identity. "While one experiences a reduced sense of private individuality by assimilating into public society, such assimilation enables the realization of public individuality," Rodriguez states. From this perspective, Rodriguez is against bilingual education, which supports teaching children in their native language for some time after they begin school.
The Role of Language
In the Rodriguez family, Spanish was the language spoken at home, while English was used for interactions with non-Hispanics. Rodriguez recalls that before the age of seven, when he was first introduced to English, returning home was a comfort. "It became the language of joyful return," he says about Spanish.
Once English became the main language at home and his skills improved, Rodriguez experienced significant changes in his life. For the first time, he felt confident enough to participate in class, raising his hand to answer questions. He also began to feel more connected to the larger American society. However, Rodriguez noticed shifts within his family; they "remained a loving family, but one greatly changed." The ease of communication decreased, and conversations between parents and children became less common.
As Rodriguez concentrated on mastering English, his proficiency in Spanish declined, which worried his numerous aunts and uncles. Although this loss was saddening for Rodriguez, he believes his relatives were mistaken in thinking that Spanish was the only thing uniting the family. He argues that this is the same error made by proponents of bilingual education. "Dangerously, they romanticize public separateness and they trivialize the dilemma of the socially disadvantaged," Rodriguez writes. It was only after he felt comfortable speaking English that Rodriguez felt genuinely American, able to claim his rights as an individual member of society.