Hunger of Memory the Education of Richard Rodriguez; Book Critique.

Richard Rodriguez was born in a Mexican immigrant family, the first years of his life he only spoke Spanish; it wasn’t until he started attending a Roman Catholic school that he was introduced to the English language. In his autobiography, Rodriguez describes his journey through education in California as a Mexican American Student with immigrant parents; he had difficulties with both languages, he found himself caught up in between his private and public life. His culture at home involved the most appreciated things in his life such as his family and Spanish, the home language. At the beginning of his education Richard learned to separate his privacy from his everyday life at school; he valued education and spent most of his time reading and studying with the nuns at his school in order to learn English. He felt really close to his family until one day three nuns from school visited their home and told his parents that it would be better if their children spoke English at home in order for them to advance in their education; from that day his parents decided that they would practice their English at all times and that changed things for Richard, he became embarrassed at his parents lack of education and it broke the relationship and comfort he had at home.

Richard practiced Catholicism as religion in this institution he learned about existence and the mediation between public and private lives. Attending a religious school made him closer to church and “stood an extraordinarily presence in my world” as Rodriguez states. Growing up he had difficulties and one of them was feeling different, his complexion and the acceptance of his physical image played an important role in his life; his mother always cared for him staying away fr...

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...r is it about merging two languages to create multiculturalism; bilingual education is, as the word itself states it, a duality but it is important to make emphasis on the language that is being introduced in order for it to be successful.

Hunger of Memory is Richard Rodriguez’s transition becoming an American, the struggles he faced learning a language, being called a minority, feeling uncomfortable in his own skin and his religion; always debating in between public and private trying to find a sense of belonging. Richard became educated and successful through his experiences some of them painful but those experiences made him the person he is today, and now looking back he can finally understand what was private and what was public, as a writer he can decide to become a public person and share his life so that others can learn from the battles he went through.