your parents must be so proud

“The Achievement of Desire”

In reading Rodriguez’s biography on page 513, it clearly states that even his previous collection of essays, “Hunger of Memory”, ‘Rodriguez’s loss is represented most powerfully by his increased alienation from his parents and the decrease of intimate exchanges in family life. … This separation…is a necessary part of every person’s development, even though not everyone experiences it so dramatically.”

Rodriguez grew up with immigrant parents who were generally proud of their backgrounds, but at the same time wanted better things for their children. This is a theme uniformly tied into most parents' motives. With time progressing, adults see the opportunities growing and the mistakes they once made, and will often try to rectify those mistakes through their children's accomplishments (this is often the case of the parents "pushing too hard" or "living vicariously"). I think that because this theme is present in the essay, (his parents always pushing him but at the same time not always expressing their pride/positive reinforcement) many readers have a common ground with Rodriguez and relate to the idea of "the scholarship boy".

While it is not his main point, Rodriguez also expresses the need to grow as an individual (without one's parents), which is another common sentiment with all/most of his readers. There will always be a separation of sorts between us and our parents, which will cause us to rebel in a way (which may or may not be advantageous to our growth) and, quite often, this starts us on our journey of self-discovery.

The pieces that some readers have a harder time connecting with involve Rodriguez's specific experience. He specifically said on page 516, "Ambition set me apart." From his family, from classmates, and sometimes from himself, Rodriguez frequently felt estranged (as many of us do) and alienated along his journey of growing up and figuring out what his motivations were for being the black sheep.

There were two passages in particular that I thought somewhat embody the piece.

On page 520, it reads:

'"Your parents must be very proud of you." People began to say that to me about the time I was in sixth grade. To answer affirmatively, I'd smile. Shyly I'd smile, never betraying my sense of the irony: I was not proud of my mother and father. I was embarrassed by their lack of education. It was not that I ever thought they were stupid, though stupidly I took for granted their enormous native intelligence. Simply, what mattered to me was that they were not like my teachers.'

On page 529, it reads:

'But this is criticism more accurate than fair. The scholarship boy is a very bad student. He is the great mimic; a collector of thoughts, not a thinker; the very last person in class who ever feels obliged to have an opinion of his own. In large part, however, the reason he is such a bad student is because he realized more often and more acutely than most other students...that education requires radical self-reformation."