The
Hunger of Memory
The Education of Richard Rodriguez
The Education of Richard Rodriguez
An
accident of geography sent me to a school where all my classmates were white,
pg. 9
It
was the first time I had heard anyone name me in English. pg. 9
I
grew up in a house where the only regular guests were my relations. pg. 11
Spanish
speakers, rather, seemed related to me, for I sensed that we shared – through
our language – the experience of feeling apart from los gringos. pg. 14
We
pieced together new words by taking, say, an English verb and giving it Spanish
endings. pg. 17
On
the other hand, the words I heard neighborhood kinds call their parents seemed
equally unsatisfactory. Mother and Father; Ma, Papa, Pa, Dad, Pop (how I hated
the all-American sound of that last word especially) –all these terms I felt
were unsuitable, not really terms of address for my parents. pg. 23
But
my father was not shy, I realized, when I’d watch him speaking Spanish with
relatives. Using Spanish, he was quickly effusive. Especially when talking with
other men, his voice would spark, flicker, flare alive with sounds. In Spanish,
he expressed ideas and feeling she rarely revealed in English. pg. 24
The
bilingualists insist that a student should be reminded of his difference from
other in mass society, his heritage. But they equate mere separateness with
individuality. The fact is that only in private, with intimates – is
separateness from the crowd a prerequisite for individuality. pg 26
He wanted to know what she had said. I started to
tell him, to say – to translate her Spanish words into English. The problem
was, however, that though I knew how to translate exactly what she had told me,
I realized that any translation would distort the deepest meaning of her
message: pg. 31
Just as Spanish would have been a dangerous language
for me to have used at the start of my education, so black English would be a
dangerous langue to use in the schooling
of teenagers for whom it reinforces feelings
of public separateness. pg. 34
I couldn’t forget that schooling was changing me and
separating me from the life I enjoyed before becoming a student. pg. 47
On the other side Mother is ironing, the wireless is on, someone is singing a snatch of song or
Father says intermittently whatever come into his head. The boy has to cut
himself off mentally, so as to do his homework, as well as he can. pg. 49
I came to idolize my grammar school teacher. … trusting their every direction. Any book they told me to read, I read – then waited
for them to tell me which books I enjoyed. pg. 52
It saddened my mother to learn that some relatives
forced their children to start working right after high school. To her children
she would say, ‘Get all the education you can.’ pg. 56
Each course had its own book. And the information gathered
from a book was unquestioned. pg. 63
I came to enjoy the lonely good company of books. pg.
66
A book so enjoyable to read couldn’t be very ‘important.’
Another summer I determined to read all the novels of Dickens. Reading his fat
novels, I loved the feeling I got – after the first hundred pages – of being at
home in a fictional world where I cared about what was going to happen to them.
And I bothered me that I was forced away at the conclusion, when the fiction
closed tight, like a fortune teller’s fist – the futures of all the major
characters neatly resolved. pg. 67
I needed to keep looking at the book jacket comments
to remind myself what the text was about. Nevertheless, with the special patience and
superstition of a scholarship boy, I looked at every word of the text. pg. 69
They must develop the skill of memory long before
they become truly critical thinkers. pg. 73
After only two or three months in the reading room of
the British Museum, it became clear that I had joined a lonely community. pg.
74
When I was a boy, anyone not Catholic was defined by
the fact and the term non-Catholic. pg.
82
I could have told you the names of persons in public
life who were Catholics. pg. 82
I noted which open doors, which front room windows
disclosed a crucifix. pg. 82
I would write at the top of my arithmetic or history
homework the initials Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. pg. 85
But I saw the picture too often to pay it much heed. pg.
87
I knew- and was terrified to know- that there was one
unforgivable sin (against the Holy Ghost): the sin of despair. pg. 88
God the Father was not so much a stern judge as One
with the power to change our lives. My family turned to God not in guilt so
much as in need. pg. 90
I was also impressing on my memory the spelling of
hundreds of words, grammar rules, division and multiplication tables. The nuns
deeply trusted the role of memorization in learning. Not coincidentally, they
were excellent teachers of basics. pg. 94
On the few occasions when secular Sacramento took up
the sacred calendar they got it all wrong. Their Christmas ended in late
afternoon on Christmas Eve. pg. 100
In church, Christmas began at midnight mass,
Christmas Eve. And the holy season continued until the Feast of Epiphany, the
sixth of January… pg . 100
Latin, the nuns taught us, was a universal language. pg.
104
The mass is less ornamental; it has been ‘modernized,’
tampered with, demythologized, deflated.
pg. 107
With them I normally will observe the politesse of
secular society concerning religion – say nothing about it. pg. 115
When I was a boy the white summer sun of Sacramento
would darken me so, my T-shirt would seem bleached against my slender dark
arms. My mother would see me come up the front steps. She’d wait for the screen
door to slam at my back. ‘You look like a negrito,’ she’d say, angry, pg. 121
It was the woman’s spoken concern: the fear of having
a dark-skinned son or daughter. Remedies were exchanged. pg. 124
Surely those uneducated and poor will remain most
vulnerable to racism. It was not coincidence that the leadership of the southern
civil rights movement was drawn mainly from a well-educated black middle class.
Even in the south of the 1950’s, all blacks were not equally black. pg. 161
I needed to tell myself that the new minority students
were foolish to think themselves unchanged by their schooling. pg. 171
I had long before accepted the fact that education
exacted a great price for its equally great benefits. pg. 172
