together but a part (prompt 1, Ch 6.2-6.3)

1. Tell what you like/dislike about the chapter/book and why. Be specific.

In the last section of the book, Rodriguez talks about what it is like when his family gets together now. He also talks about the difference between written and spoken word.
I really enjoyed this part because his vocabulary made me feel as if I was at his parents home for their family dinners. It was very enjoyable to read because I could picture the things and conversations that were going on.


I thought it was interesting how Rodriguez says he is a different person in his writing than when he is speaking. He hopes that his siblings will be able to trust him after seeing this "other side of him" through his writing. When one of his aunts read a part of his autobiography she said that "it didn't seem like him". In other wards, as the reader we know about him, but we can not know the way that he speaks or holds himself and so we don't really "know" him. I thought that it was neat the way he explained this.

*The thing, in this section, that frustrated me the most was the lack of closeness in his family. He explains a typical holiday at his parents house. The conversations are in English because their spouses speak only English. He shares that this is uncomfortable to his parents. They are quiet and seem sad. He shows how their family has grown a part with education and language barriers as well. The thing that annoys me about this is that he knows there is a communication problem and yet he doesn't try and fix it. His parents have had hard lives, but he doesn't make them feel close and loved. His father doesn't talk the whole holiday dinner and his mother seems lonely and sad. It is upsetting that he doesn't do something about it. Why can't he try to share more about his life and make them feel more loved and needed? I don't understand why he does not address the problems that he is seeing.

What I thought about the book!!!!!!!

I enjoyed reading this book "Hunger of Memory". I thought that Richard Rodriguez was a very good and interesting author. I liked how he was honest and open about personal parts of his life, which helped me to connect to the book and to his experiences. It was sad how his family had fallen a part because they no longer shared the same cultural connection and frustrating that Rodriguez is not trying to make his relationship with his family better because he obviously saw the problem. His life was very interesting and it was neat to see the life of someone from another culture and how they were able to live in our culture.

I also did not like how the United States had the movement to bring more minorities into their colleges without being willing to teach them so that they could survive. I think that Rodriguez was right in wanting to fight it, but it was very surprising that he gave up everything he had worked for and having a job teaching at a University of his choice to fight this movement. It is awesome that he could stand up for what he thought was right to that extent!