Rosa Cruz
KT Shafer
CHLS 370
2/ October/ 2018
Ligature Review: Aria
Delgado, Fernando Pedro. “Richard Rodriguez and the Culture Wars: The Politics of (Mis)Representation.” Howard Journal of Communications, vol. 5, no. 1–2, 1993, pp. 1–17.EBSCOhost,csulb.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=2003900074&site=ehost-live
In “Richard Rodriguez and the culture wars: The Politics of (mis)representation” by Fernando Pedro Delgado defends Rodriguez from critics, that argue that Rodriguez’s Hunger of Memory leads to a misrepresentation of the Mexican-American identity, as a means to prove that they secure Rodriguez’s place as the voice of the Mexican-Americans by reinforcing the dominant criticism. Delgado claims that the criticisms given by Chicano critics work alongside the hegemonically criticism expressed through the Anglo ideology. He states that this is done when the dominate culture keeps Rodriguez’s work as a way to reinforce their ideology of assimilation of native language and by responding to his work critics keep the topic relevant. Chicano critics claim that Rodriguez can be seen as an opportunist because he takes advantage of what is offered from Chicano activists and does not give anything back to the community. Delgado argues that these critics solely rely on the historical and social context to point out the inconsistencies in Rodriguez’s work. Critics further disapprove of Rodriguez for allowing himself to be part of the Anglo-American world by assimilating his language while speaking for the Chicano experience. To which Delgado responds by stating that Rodriguez never claims to be an active representative of the dominate culture but rather remains passive. According to Delgado these criticisms only reinforce the ideology and dominance of Anglo America’s ideologies because they keep Rodriguez’s work relevant through their critical analyzes.
Delgado feuds with Tomas Rivera by claiming he pushes aside the social and historical context of Rodriguez’s work which leads Rivera to believe that his work should be taken as a singularity rather than have it be generalized to a larger group. When discussing the literature of Chicanos, Delgado emphasizes the boundaries that Chicano authors had developed as a means to distinguish their literature as well as culture from the major literature found in the United States. Delgado explains the need for Chicano authors to write about identity since they were trying to dissociate themselves from the label of Mexican-Americans, “focus on negotiating an identity within the new culture” (Delgago 6). This is very different from Rivera’s point of view of Hunger of Memory, where he views the text a singular personal experience that should not be generalized to the larger public. Unlike Delgado, he insists that “Hispanics, Chicanos, and Latinos are not a homogenous group, rather than a heterogenous kindred group” that have different experiences, perceptions, and understandings (Rivera 5). Which they don’t all relate to Rodriguez’s experience nor the reflection of North American Education created by his work.
I didn’t fully agree with Delgado’s stance of Hunger of Memory, because he justifies all of Rodriguez’s inconsistencies rather than just admitting that his work is flawed. I would agree with critics that Rodriguez’s work falls in consistency with the Anglo-American ideologies. But do not agree with the justification that Delgado gives the audience regarding Rodriguez’s assimilation. I would much rather have received a rebuttal with more factual data than Delgado using actualities to defend Rodriguez. I do agree with his statements regarding the need for literature with a focus on identity to feed into cultural renaissance, but the literature should interpret strictly as literature rather than as an empirical fact. When pieces of literature are taken as facts that where unintentional stereotypes might arise from the experiences shared I that particular piece of literature.
Lim, Jeehyun. “‘I Was Never at War with My Tongue’: The Third Language and the Performance of Bilingualism in Richard Rodriguez.” Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly, vol. 33, no. 3, 2010, pp. 518–542. EBSCOhost, csulb.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=2011300511&site=ehost-live.
Jeehyun Lim’s “‘I Was Never at War with My Tongue’: The Third Language and the Performance of Bilingualism in Richard Rodriguez” traces Rodriguez’s cultural politics as he performs bilingualism in Hunger of Memory and his other works. Lim makes sense of his bilingualism through the use of a third language as a language of convergence, where it wasn’t private nor public but a middle ground for both languages. She goes on to use the Claire Kim, a political scientist, concept of “racial triangulation” to explain how Rodriguez’s use of the third language points at the racial dynamics of inclusion and exclusion. Through the use of the third language, Lim expresses that it is reflective of Rodriguez’s stance with racial hybridity as he embraces brown, not as a skin color but more mixture of the generations before him. She explains that racial triangulation views race as this order of groups based on social status and privilege. In this case, whites would be top and black would be at the bottom and all other groups would be somewhere in between in this imaginary racial triangle. Lim goes on to argue that Rodriguez sense of guilt points at the racial dynamics because he considers himself benefitting from black exclusion. She points out that Rodriguez rejects the label of minority by insisting that he should not be labeled as a minority because he enjoys the benefits of school. The issues arise when Rodriguez is faces with the reality that regardless of his spoken language, his brown skin prevents him from being at the white side of the spectrum. She argues that with the use of third language, he is able to avoid there is he binary of the racial dynamics and identify with a medium, brown.
Although both Lim and Romero go against Rodriguez’s Hunger of Memory, they differ in the sense that Romero focus on the contradictory criticism produced by Hunger of Memory. Whereas Lim concentrates on the controversial nature of Rodriguez cultural political views presented through his work. Romero insinuates that Chicano Critics may have an unfavorable view of Hunger of Memory because it creates the mistake of “[catering]to the perception of the dominant culture that believes literacy can only come about through English” (Romero 97). He states that politicians have taken Hunger of Memory and use it to play into the idea that Spanish is an obstruction to the public life which in turn creates a resistance to bilingual education school programs. Whereas Lim’s points out the inconsistencies with Rodriguez’s political stance on issues reflected throughout his work with the use of the third language. Instead of focusing on what critics have to say about Rodriguez’s work, she argues that the structural similarities between the third language presented in his work and brown show structural configuration of US race relations (Lim 521). Both of Lim’s and Romero’s analyses of Rodriguez offer new ways to interpret Hunger of Memory despite them not have many similarities.
Evaluating Lim’s work on Hunger of Memory I cannot say I would agree with her view on how she is interprets the use of the third language as a means to reflect on Rodriguez’s political stance. The whole idea of this third language representing the desire to split from the regular binary of language seems like a far stretch that only can lead to confusion of the reader. At times she refers to the third language as being a way for both languages to converge and is put on display through the use of intimacy. But then changes the meaning of the third language as being the “third space”, which she claims is this as a sense of hybridity that Rodriguez tries to use as a means to find a way out of the binary. It also fails to persuade me into believing that through the use of the third language that Rodriguez expresses the need want to break free from the binary. Instead I feel as though Rodriguez’s trauma with the binary language has only manifested colorism tendencies since he only mentions black folks as a means of doing downward comparisons.
Rivera, Tomás. “Richard Rodriguez’ Hunger of Memory as Humanistic Antithesis.” MELUS, vol. 11, no. 4, 1984, pp. 5–13. EBSCOhost, csulb.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=0000307449&site=ehost-live.
“Richard Rodriguez’s Hunger of Memory as a Humanistic Antithesis” as the title infers, Tomás Rivera argues that Hunger of Memory could be seen as a humanistic antithesis as a result of Rodriguez’s continuous self-cultural repression through the assimilation of his native tongue. Rivera brings attention to Rodriguez’s use of patterns centered around language to express his need to be silent and non-silent, public and private, as an expression of the conflict of the language binary. Rivera uses of the two Spanish verbs of “to be”, to further his idea that there is negation of culture through rejection of Spanish throughout Hunger of Memory. He argues that in a Hispanic world, Ser belongs to family and is more important in the interior world. Oppose to, Estar where one is taught how to be therefore it belongs to the public. This is where Rivera suggest that there must be an internal conflict within Rodriguez that leads him to give importance to Estar, where it is believed one can be their authentic self. Due to Rivera’s Humanistic Antithesis, he argues that Rodriguez’s work should be viewed as an independent distinct piece of work that should not be applied to the general Latinx public.
Comparing Romero’s and Rivera’s analyses, their ideals overlap regarding Rodriguez’s Hunger of Memory because they both see how the Anglo-American world can take the text and further push their anti-bilingualism political agenda. Romero states that through the use of Hunger of Memory, dialogue has emerged between the dominate and Chicano culture regarding the use of the Spanish language. This dialogue that has resulted from Rodriguez’s work has an “internal logic that is based on the dominant group’s prejudice assumptions regarding Chicano culture” meaning that through the use of Rodriguez’s work, the dominate group has found the means to justify Spanish as a hindrance to public life and North American education. When Hunger of Memory should be viewed as a piece of literature that does not allow the Chicano voice to show through but rather the voice of the dominate group. Rivera’s thoughts of Hunger of Memory intersect with Romero’s work in the sense that he states that it creates lack of understand of the Hispanic world because it is not allowed to speak through Rodriguez. Furthermore, he argues that through the lack of knowledge of Hispanic culture results in “knowledge of the unknown [to be] accepted, simplified, and categorized” (Rivera 11). This means that Rodriguez’s lack of sense of community is leads to his work appearing to side with colonizer ideals that do not seek validation from mass communities to correct their false ideals of Hispanic culture.
Rivera’s analyzes of the Hunger of Memory is by far the only article I can agree with due his presentation of the humanistic antithesis and how it leads to the generalization of Rodriguez’s experience to the Latinx culture as a whole. He explains through the use of Spanish verbs how the humanistic antithesis comes to be due the conflict of Spanish being his personal voice and English as his public voice which then leads to the assimilation of his native tongue to reduce cognitive dissonance. I agree with the ideal that misinformation of Chicano culture created by the humanistic heuristic should not be applied to general to Hispanics, Chicanos, and Latinos because the Rodriguez work mirror the North American literature. The constant availability of his reflection of his experience with bilingualism may cause the public to deem his experience a significant to the whole Latinx population. It is important to make that distinction to avoid the reinforcing unwanted stereotypes.
Romero, Rolando J. “Spanish and English: The Question of Literacy in Hunger of Memory.” Confluencia: Revista Hispanica de Cultura y Literature, vol. 6, no. 2, 1991, pp 89-100. EBSCOhost,csulb.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&bd=mzh&AN=1992006742&site=ehost-live.
Spanish and English: The Question of Literacy in Hunger of Memory written by Rolando J. Romero breaks down Richard Rodriguez’s Hunger of Memory to explain its controversial nature. Romero believes the ambivalence in Hunger of Memory derives from Rodriguez’s contradictory ideas on the Chicano identity and its relationship with bilingualism. Romero considers the presentation of the terms “Spanish” and “English” through a pastoral view as a leading factor to why the dominant culture views the book in a favorable way and Chicano Culture does not. He argues that Rodriguez’s philosophical pastoral view imitates rural life with a wholesome period in his life that can be regarded as the “Golden Age”. Rodriguez’s golden age is described to take part during his youth, where he was just a boy experiences life in a community driven world. All of that changed when he learned how to speak English where he felt like he had sinned, and his punishment was alienation from his family. Romero argues that the dominant culture’s views are reflected in the text because it appeals to British literature when Rodriguez silences his “Spanish Voice” and chooses to pick up the English language. By doing this Romero argues that this pushes the narrative that Spanish is an obstruction to achieve literacy and social belonging to North American culture further pushing the dominant culture’s narrative. The controversy is presented when Chicano critics step in to analyze Hunger of Memory because they believe that the book pushes more of a standard British literature narrative rather than allow the Chicano Culture to shine through. Romero argues that this change happens when Rodriguez’s grandmother passes, Spanish no longer symbolizes life but death. In his struggle to survive, Romero suggest that Rodriguez turns to English to seek validation of the public rather than in the private, home.
The issues that are being presented in Romero’s work contradict the views presented by Delgado, due to the idea that Romero views Rodriguez’s work romantically narcissistic due to his need to reflect his imagine into the dominate culture’s controversial view of bilingualism. Whereas Delgado claims that Rodriguez, “does not represent himself as an active agent” in the dominate culture (Delgado 11). Romero’s work presents a different point of view Hunger of Memory because he challenges the personality of Rodriguez, where as other authors who don’t agree with Rodriguez challenge his literature. Instead of justifying his action like Delgado, Romero further investigates the personality of the author to try to understand why he feels the need to try to identify with English and the public at the cost of his family and culture.
Romero’s criticism of Rodriguez sold me because he was one of the only authors who looked at his personality traits to try to make sense of why he felt the need to enforce his appeal to British literature. I was convinced because Hunger of Memory is an autobiography that tell the story of Rodriguez struggle to social acceptance. It was his personal journey, emphasis on his, so it makes sense to analyze the author and look the text’s historical context. Most of all the other articles focused on analyzing the text rather than both the author and the text. Romero provides a different insight to the text as whole rather than focusing on what just on the use of language and terms.