Hunger Of Memory Essay, Research Paper

The Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez, was a story about an Hispanic kid who went through a lot of changes throughout his childhood. This boy moved to California to live with his family and start his new life. He had never learned to speak or understand English, so you can only imagine how difficult a time he must have had. He tried to keep quiet his entire time in class so he didn’t humiliate or just flat out embarrass himself.

He grew up thinking that English was a public language while Spanish was a private one. Through the next 6 months to year he started to pick up English much more fluently but kept on talking in Spanish when he was at home. One day his parents were told by the teachers (nuns) that he needed to speak English at home if he was going to really pick it up well, and to stop speaking in Spanish period. This disturbed Richard a lot and he tried not to follow through with it.

Richard thought that if he talked an English to his parents he would not feel intimate and their closeness would be gone. He felt this for a long time until he grew up a little and realized that no matter what he spoke his family’s backbone and intimacy would always be there. As time went by he started to like the feeling of being an American citizen and he found his family and him just as close as always. He also realized that intimacy was do to those who are supposed to be intimate not because of any language.

I thought this story was kind of blaa. At the beginning of the story Richard made it very hard to understand by the way he would phrase things. It seemed like he started out writing this in junior high and finished it in college. He was very specific throughout his writing, and gave many ideas and thoughts that he had and put them down on paper, but some of it was a little to explained and unnecessary.

Although he described things in detail throughout the story, it was hard at times to understand what exactly he was saying. The whole opening paragraph seemed like a bunch of words thrown down on paper not organized and not in good structure. He should completely redo the first two pages and change the way he words everything.

This would be a good biography for a ninth grader to write about himself, but I couldn’t understand why we read this for a journal entry. It wasn’t very touching and it wasn’t very good. I’ve had harder times than that in life.

Not much has been happening with me lately. My dog got sick last Thursday night around 3:00 in the morning, but she just had an allergic reaction to something. She is ok now. My birthday is coming up on the 27 of this month, and I’m excited because my parents are coming up for the weekend. That means my pantry and refrigerator will be well stacked and anything else that I need will be taken care of. I think my mom got me

some hardware for my drums but I’m not sure, it would be nice though. I went to jail last weekend for a public intoxication charge, which was so ridicules because I wasn’t even drunk. Yeah I was buzzed but you are only supposed to get one if your putting yourself or others endanger, which sitting in a blockbuster parking lot is not doing. Another thing is that the county jail is so disgusting and unhumanitary, I have decided to go and complain to the capital that people who are supposed to get just a ticket should never be stuck in a disgusting place like that.

There were a lot of people in jail that night for the same reason and they didn’t do anything wrong either. I don’t like Austin that well right now. I can’t stand the drivers; they really don’t know how to drive. It seems as if I’m behind all old ladies. The roads here were put together by an idiot. I think it was the same guy who did the highways in San Antonio, who killed himself because he knew how much he screwed up. They were not made for more than 100,000 people, and there is more than five times that here. They are about to ad ramps going from I-35 to 71 and from 71 to I-35, which is needed, but it’s supposed to take about six years which will mean tremendous traffic right near school.

I don’t understand why there are stoplights on the highways here. 71, Mopac, and Capital of Texas all have stoplights on them. It almost makes me cry to see this. So between the transportation department, the legal system and the people who work for it, and the drivers here in Austin,

it hasn’t given me a very happy welcome. School has also been very frustrating so far. I’m taking very hard classes and I have had so much work to do and it is only the third week of the semester. I have had a lot of things on my mind and obviously by the way I have been writing you can tell I am very criticizable right now. I just am looking forward to my birthday, because I think it will be a good relief for me.

Bibliography

The hunger of memory by Richard Rodriguez

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