Rhetorical Analysis: Songs From The Barrio

“ I will tell you something about stories, they aren't just for entertainment. They are all we have, you see… you don't have anything if you don't have the stories” (Leslie Marmon). Storytelling plays a major role in sharing the importance of series of events that have occurred to the narrator. Richard Rios, a retired English and Chicano Studies teacher wrote Songs From The Barrio: A Coming of Age in Modesto, CA. In the book, the author argues that he lived in a concoction between two different cultures his entire life. In his book, he discusses how this has shaped him to identify himself throughout life. The author uses rhetorical strategies to convey the reader as well as to keep the reader entertained while telling his life stories. In addition, the author recalls certain events that helped him understand his culture a bit more. Rios does this by using ethos, pathos, and logos to emphasize his credibility, it also shows that he’s trustworthy as well as knowledgeable about the things that he is talking about.
In the author’s book, in order to convey his argument. Rios uses the rhetorical device such as ethos to convince the reader with credible evidence of the experiences he went through in life. The author …show more content…
He saw the discrimination against the Mexican culture. The author utilizes ethos to emphasize that many people from a country such as Mexico were negatively viewed. But he knew that “these were rural, uneducated, honest, hardworking people, who wanted only for their kids to have more than they had in Mexico”(xi). The author uses this rhetorical device to show his credibility on what it was like living in the middle of two different cultures, especially when one was being negatively viewed. But the author knew which side he stands in and understood why his people were being told those things, but he also argues that the only thing they wanted is the best for their