Analysis Of Achievement Of Desire By Richard Rodriguez

I believe the purpose of education is to give students the necessary skills to reach one’s full potential. In Achievement of Desire by Richard Rodriguez, the author tells how his involvement with education caused him to become disconnected from his family. Because there were no minority studies, the author’s education caused him to become isolated from his family while also disconnecting him from his culture; however, today the emergence of intersectional perspectives allows minorities to understand their culture and create deeper connections with their communities.
Unfortunately, my family's background consists of poverty, drug and alcohol abuse, and death. I have to admit that I am one of the most privileged people in my family because my …show more content…
While taking a gender studies course I began to realize the negative portrayal of women in film and television. Once while watching “The Little Mermaid”, I told my mom that the film is about female oppression in a patriotic society because Ariel has to give up her voice in order to get married and have a happy life. When I told my mom my realization she looked at me bewildered, she told me “You’re thinking about this way too much”. My mom’s confused look and response made me not want to share the knowledge I would gain at school because she either did not understand or did not care. Rodriguez also felt this way as he began to spend more time studying and took a step away from his family(518). I think many students can relate to Rodriguez’s argument that education causes isolation. The act of studying, writing, reading or research causes us to block out any distractions and engage with the task at hand. Rodriguez also mentions how his education caused him to only share a connection with those who had the same knowledge as he did, he states, “. . . I realized that my special interests and skills united me to a mere handful of academics. We formed an exclusive- eccentric!- society separated from others who would never care or be able to share our concerns”(530). Because Rodriguez specialized his studies in English Renaissance Literature, he was only able to …show more content…
Rodriguez describes himself as a “scholarship boy”, a student who is uncertain about themselves because their education and their background cannot be reconciled (527). Richard Hoggart’s elaborates on the concept of the “scholarship boy”, “He rarely feels the reality of knowledge, of other men’s thoughts and imaginings on his own pulses. . . He has something of a blinkered pony about him”(Rodriguez 528). Perhaps Rodriguez was not able to feel “the reality of knowledge” he learned because he shared no personal connection to the English Renaissance texts he studied. As a Chicano scholar he was taught a European viewpoint and accepted it as truth. It appears that Rodriguez is very much like the “blinkered pony” Hoggart describes. Like Rodriguez, the pony’s perspective is limited because there are barriers that cause the pony to only see a certain objective. Education is not only a tool for knowledge but it is also a tool for socialization. Based on the time period there were no intersectional or minority studies; consequently, his studies caused him to prioritize white culture. As a way to survive in academia during this time, Rodriguez had to become colonized and embrace the Western point of view. His ideas stem from the thoughts of others, instead of reflecting upon his