Article Writing

Write a 6 pages paper on the achievement desire by richard rodriguez. In his essay, Rodriguez admits that he despised his parents on educational grounds. Even so, the cultural separation, brought about through education, dawns to him later on while he was undertaking his studies in graduate school. Education had distanced him from his family life.

Inability to balance between personal life ambition and the school can be tragic. As Hoggart puts it, a scholarship kind presents a “friction point of two cultures” (Rodriguez 540). Rodriguez comes from a family background consisting of barely educated middle-class parents and enrolling into the school, as a scholarship student, makes up an entry in a novel environment. He admits to having forgotten where he came from (598). He is too ambitious in achieving academic success that he distances himself from his ‘helpless’ family. The inability to balance his school life, ambition and family life caused him guilt and shame. For Rodriguez, he chose school over his family.

Personally, I can relate to Rodriguez circumstances, given the situational similarities thereof. As Latino Puerto Rican, I happen to come from a low-class family, just like Rodriguez. When I awarded a scholarship for my studies, with the difficulty in affording school, I was filled with anxiety of success since this was an exceptional chance at hand. To achieve this, I needed support and help from my parents. However, when the parents fail to keep up with the standards of support one requires, other options are sought. Intrinsically, the teachers are the next most feasible replacement for the parents in regards to support. I did what Rodriguez refers to as “a transfer of allegiance that previously given to the parents, to the new figure of authority, the teacher” (600). The new environment of school got me exposed to peer pressure, from other students from high-class families and bullying due to the fact that I was on scholarship. The situation rendered me unable to play a sport. rather I concentrated on achieving academic success.