Richard Rodriguez's Hunger of Memory

8 Richard Rodriguez's Hunger ofMemory and the Rejection of the Private Self Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert RICHARD RODRIGUEZ, the son of Mexican-American immigrants, was born in 1946 in San Francisco, California. Rodriguez graduated in 1967 from Stanford University, received an M.A. from Columbia University in 1969, and attended graduate school at the Unive rsity of California, Berkeley. His journey through the American educa tional system, his abrupt decision to leave the academic life, and his alienation from his parents' culture are chronicled in his landmark collection of autobiographical essays, written and published sepa rately between 1973 and 1981: Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez (1982). Controversial when first published, it be came one of the most debated texts in U.S. Latino letters. In this aestheti cally beautiful book, Rodriguez discusses significant social and political issues, using incidents from his own life to illustrate his points, including the change of language from Spanish to English upo n beginning school and a confrontation with affirmative action programs. Rodriguez's second collection of essays, Days of Obligation: An Ar gument with My Mexican Father (1992), explores a variety of subjects as diverse as the conquest of Mexico, AIDS, and the spiritual and moral landscapes of the United States and Mexico. Rodriguez is con sidered one of the foremost essayists in the United States, and he is a frequen t guest on public television and radio. 82 u.s. Latino Literatu re Rejection of the Private Self 83 graphical essays focusing on Rodriguez'S education. The first of these, ANALYSIS OF THEMES AND FORMS "Aria," chronicles how the intimate sp ace of Rodriguez's childhood Richard Rodriguez's Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodri home, where Spanish is the household language, is lost through his de guez, published in 1982 to both critical acclaim and heated controversy, termination to learn English and have access to what he calls "public is one of the most elegantl y crafted Mexican-American texts. It is also, society." The condemnation of bilingual education in "Aria" is devel certainly, one of the mo st vilified, having gained its notoriety among oped more fully in the second essay, "The Achievement of Desire," Chicano critics from its au thor's apparent rejection of his ancestral Mex which narrates how his pursuit of education, seen primarily through his ican roots. Reade rs of Rodriguez's complex yet reticent memoir have love and enjoyment of books, alienates him from his relatively unedu condemned it as conservative in its decrying of the evils of affirmative cated, Spanish-speaking parents. In "Credo," he links the theme of alien action programs, "assimilated" in its apparen t lack of sympathy with the ation to his identity as a Mexican Catholic, establishing in the process Chicano movement's emphasis on la raza (a political identification of the the basis for the confessional tone of the entire text, which he links to Hispanic "race"), and agringado (affected by or assimil ated into the Anglo the seminal influence of Saint Augustine's Confessions. The fourth essay, community) in its depiction of the heinousness of bilingual programs. "Complexion," exp lores Rodriguez's unease about his dark skin and Rodriguez's refusal to embrace Chicano politics and identity quickly what he calls his Indian features. These uncomfortable markers of dif turned him into a pocho, a Mexican Am erican who denied his heritage. ference keep reminding him of the ethnicity he seeks to escape through He insists tha t they are not of any particular interest to him. He writes education. In "Profession," Rodriguez focuses on his negative feelings in Hunger of Memory, "1 do not search Mexican graveyards for ties to about affirmative action, illustrated by his refusal to accept a teaching unnameable ancestors ."! Often, he avows, he could barely bring himself position at Yale which he believes has come to him as a result of policies to concede tha t he was "of Mexican ancestry"; not for him a search for tha t ma rginalize him as a less-deserving "ethnic" candidate. "Mr. Se identity in the mythical Aztlan, the fabled place of origin that gave the crets," the sixth and last essay, considers the alienating gap that has Chicano movement its most powerful symbol of ancestry and roots. As developed between him and his siblings and their parents as a result of Jeffrey Louis Decker writes in his review of Rodriguez's second book, their ed ucation and concomitant rise into the middle class. Days of Obligation, "[T]he principal objection Chicano critics raise regard Hunger of Memory is consistently described as an ethnic autobiography, ing the work of Richard Rodriguez concerns his failure to engage the altho ug h its structure as a group of interrelated essays makes that clas reality of the Mexican experience in America."? sification somewhat inadequate. The genre of ethnic autobiography re Yet, upon its publication, Hunger of Memory received remarkable praise quires the articulation of a life from within the bounds of a pa rticular in the mainstream media. It was the first book written by a Chicano to ethnic experience, but Rod riguez seeks to evade the "ethnic literature" be widely and enthusiastically reviewed by publications such as the New label and defines his trajectory toward adulthood as one of disassociation York Times Book Review, Time, Newsweek, and the Atlantic Monthly, which from his ethnic roots. His "metaphor of self" is rooted in his acquisition had never before offered such critical consideration to a Hispanic text. of a language and a universe of kn owledge that can erase the marks of Their acclaim stood in stark contrast to the critical backlash from Chicano ethnicity that are his undesired ancestral and historical legacy. The "ar critics, who perceived that Anglos believed they ha d found in the book senal of literary techniques" he deploys to document this accomplish "a key to understanding the Mexican-American and debates related to ment seek, not to conn ect him to his ethnic experience, as is the case in bilingual education and affirma tive action."? For Anglos Rodriguez be the ethnic autobiography, but to separate himself from a notion of self came, in the years immed iately following the publication of Hunger of limi ted by ethnicity. His position, as Bill Shuter ha s argued, is that "an Memory, "the voice of 'Hispanic America."?" The ensuing years, and the authentic ethnic identity cannot survive, and should not be expected to publication of his second bo ok, Days of Obligation,5 have only solidified survive, either a public education or the acquisition of a public self.?" his position as the most ub iquitous and recognizable Hispanic public Rodriguez's repeated allusions to Saint Au gus tine's Confessions, a spir intellectual in the United States. Excerpts from his work are routinely itual autobiography, mark that text as providing a generic example more included in the anthologies and "readers" tha t form the staple of fresh powerful than the many ethnic autobiographies that precede Hunger of man English offerings, and discussions of his work are de rigueur in Memory. Like the Confessions, Hunger of Memory, a model of relentless courses on ethnic literature and multiculturalism in the United States. introspection, is written in the confessional mode, as the elaboration of The text of Hunger of Memory consists of a prologue, "Middle-Class a systematic process of self-inquiry, self-accusation, and acknowledg Pastoral," and six loosely connected, chronologically ar ranged autobio- ment of an alienated selfhood. Rod riguez mus t confess his insistence on ""¥" I 84 u.s. Latino Literature Rejection of the Private Self 85 learning English as a betrayal of the intimacy of his childhood home; he multicultural America, where immigrants such as Rodriguez's parents must recount the progress of his education as a narra tive of youthful can enter "public life" while retaining their language and culture in their transgression; he must contextualize his process of maturation as a vio private and public lives. Instead, he suggests that the immigrant' s only lation of family life. opportunity for integration into American culture depends on his or her Hunger of Memory, as an example of the bildungsroman or chronicle willingness to relinquish the markers of his previous identity. of development, narrates the path followed by a lower-class immigrant The most salient marker of Rodriguez's Mexicanness (other than his child toward success as a middle-class American citizen. As such, it is body, which is discussed below) is language. He presents Spanish as the the very essence of an ethnic autobiography. However, the very success single most powerful obstacle to assimilation (or to entering the public that gives the narrative its coherence- Rodriguez's attainment of a grad sphere, in the text's construction) for Mexican Americans . Hence the fre uate degree in English at one of the country's most prestigious private quent allusions to language and learning, primaril y to William Shake institutions- is one he repudiates because he find s that it may be speare's The Tempest, in which Caliban seizes the language of Prospero perceived as hav ing been achieved through the assistance of the affir and us es it as a tool to transcend his own limitations. Caliban becomes mative action programs he dep lores. This repudiation of affirmative ac the model for Rodrigue z's own transcendence of the obstacles presented tion programs, which constitutes the most impassioned ges ture of by his Mexicanness- hence the importance given in the text to the pro disavowal of an ethnically defined experience, is the natural outcome of cess of his education as the path that will lead him from Spanish to a text that presents the problem of the Mexican-American child as one English, from Spanish to American culture, and from ignorance to a nar made up of endless sets of binary oppositions.

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