Scholarship Boy Richard Rodriguez Summary

Richard Rodriguez is a journalist from a Mexican immigrant family. Rodriguez talks about a few of his personal and professional tensions in the article “Scholarship Boy”. The tensions include the importance of education in a working class family whose education level is minimal and creates tension for Rodriguez toward his family. At an early age in school, Rodriguez gained control over the English language creating a separation between his parents especially his mom. The language barrier made it difficult for his mom to help him with his school work. Regardless, Rodriguez did well in school, although they could do little to support him. As strange as it seems, his parents encouraged him to do well in school was a quite a contrast to the way his parents …show more content…
Rodriguez felt he was more intellectual and distanced himself away from his family who he thought of as uneducated. The contrast is significant since his parents encouraged his education and Rodriguez shortcomings to distance his family are preposterous. His parents respected Rodriguez and want to share in the triumph of learning, but when he goes to college, he lost sight of the most important part of who he was. The climax of Rodriguez distance from his family affected him emotionally. The struggle in for Rodriguez to find a balance between his educational experiences and personal life was to embrace two different environments by understanding the basis of which the outcomes. Both Rodriguez and his family come from the principles of hard work, dedication, honesty and focusing on what is important. The balance in understanding these principles for Rodriguez is the struggle for him to understand, regardless of where we end up in life. Throughout life we continue to learn like Rodriguez and become aware of who we are in our educational, personal, and professional life. He is a mere student merging from the ethics of his parents' vision. Rodriguez success is an attribute to who he is