Question

Rodriguez says that his parents "are no longer his parents" in a cultural sense what details does he use to develop this idea and in the text?

Answer 1

Since Richard Rodriguez is a writer that emphasized his origins as the son of Mexican immigrants, but nevertheless was raised by the American academia and society. In the essay of Hunger of Memory, he stated how after being part of a socially disadvantaged family, that although it was very close, the extreme public alienation, made him feel in disadvantage to other children as he grew up. Due to this,  30 years later he pays essential attention to how from being a socially aligned to a Mexican immigrant child, he grew up to be an average American man. He analyses his persona from that social point of view of being different in the race but similar in the customs. Hence, the author finds himself struggling with his identity.  

A good example of it, it’s the manner he introduces his last name. A Spanish rooted last name, which may seem difficult to pronounce to a native English speaker. The moment the author introduces himself and tries to clarify its pronunciation to an American person, he mentions how his parents are no longer his parents in a cultural sense.  

His parents belong to a different culture, his parents grew up in a different context, they were raised with different values and ways; in that sense, Rodriguez culturally sees himself as an American, his education was different to his parents’. He doesn’t see his parents as his culture-educators, he adamantly rejects the idea that he might be able to claim "unbroken ties" to his inherited culture to the ones of White Americans who would anoint him to play out for them some drama of ancestral reconciliation.  As the author said, “Perhaps because I am marked by the indelible color they easily suppose that I am unchanged by social mobility, that I can claim unbroken ties with my past.”