Analysis Of Richard Rodriguez's: The Achievement Of Desire

Textual Analysis of Richard Rodriguez’s: The Achievement of Desire In the 1990’s Mary Louise Pratt gave an impactful and inspiring lecture on education and how it’s archaic ways needed to be changed. Pratt, being a representative of the MLA, (Modern Language Association) gave her credibility among the academic community. She began her lecture with a brief introduction involving her son, Sam. Sam’s fascination with Baseball jumpstarted his education; it taught him critical skills during the early stages of his life such as phonics through the learning of player’s names and their hometown’s. Over the years his economic prowess through trading with others ,memorization skills through remembering player statistics and batting averages, and his …show more content…
Pratt defines an Autoethnographic text as “a text in which people undertake to describe themselves in ways that engage with representations others have made of them.” (Pratt, 319) Poma’s manuscript was originally meant for King Philip III of Spain, but was never delivered. Instead it wasn’t until 1908 when it was finally discovered by Peruvianist Richard Pietschmann. Much of Pratt’s essay has to deal with Poma’s interpretations and perspective on Spanish rule. Poma tried to relate to Philip by expressing the similarities of each other’s cultures and beliefs. Unfortunately, this was mostly in vain. While the times have long since past, we are still able to interpret Poma’s use of autoethnography through Pratt’s …show more content…
The end result of theses contact zones bring us together. They allow for multiple perspectives to be shared and for everyone to work towards one coherent goal. These qualities compose what Pratt calls a Utopian culture. “Now obviously this style of imagining of modern nations, as Anderson describes it, is strongly utopian, embodying values like equality, fraternity, liberty, which the societies often profess but systematically fail to realize. The prototype of the modern nation as imagined community was, it seemed to me, mirrored in ways people thought about language and the speech community.” (Pratt, 325-27) As Pratt mentioned, there are certainly flaws to this type of culture. While Utopian society strives for perfection, it will always be unable to achieve its goals, due to the way humanity operates. Comprised entirely of individuals with different opinions and though processes, humanity is not capable to reach the requirements a Utopian way of life demands. This would go against our very