Michael
Homsany
Professor:
Benjamin Doyle
English
1111
Monday
November 5, 2012
" Richard Rodriguez and his Account of Oneself "
“The Achievement
of Desire” by Richard Rodriguez is the perfect example of what we have been
talking in the last weeks about Butler and others philosophers like Foucault
and Adorno. Just like they try to question and understand the “I”, and how to
define “Who I am”; Rodriguez through his reading try to understand who is he,
and who can he become, taking into account his education, his family and
economic status. Rodriguez try’s to make “An account of him self”, although
that is has being difficult for him to achieve recognition in his early
life. Rodriguez to a series of events
try’s not only to define who is he, but also “Who can I be, given the regime of truth determines ontology
for me?”. Rodriguez account or better
say critique tries to help the reader understand how the “regime of
truth”(Butler 22) limits the ontology on being, saying what is normal or truth
and what is not. But then the problem emerge when he found himself in a
situation where what he is and the way he keeps his life, is not given by those
norms, depriving him of getting recognition and find who he is as an
individual.
Rodriguez was born
in a Mexican family. Rodriguez parents because of their economic status where
educated in a different way that Rodriguez or we might not be familiar with,
but at the same time they desire for their sons a professional American
education that they could never get. As a little kid his parents encourage him
to get an American education even though that R´ native language was Spanish,
so language was a very hard thing for him.
Being English the new language spoken at school, challenge Rodriguez a
lot at the beginning, keeping him unable to achieve self –social recognition.
“I intended to hurt my mother and father. I was still angry at them for having
encouraged me towards classroom English” (Rodriguez 519). This passage shows how his parents do
encourage him at the beginning on getting an education and how as I mention
before he was struggling with language.
It was hard not only for him but also for his parents whom could not
even help their son with his homework.
As he begins to
grow up he begin to felt embarrassed and ashamed by his parent’s situation,
they’re “lacked” of education and their Mexican background. It was at this
point that he decided to take his studies and his education at a maximum level
of importance in order for him to be a “successful” person. The “Scholarship
boy” (516) life as a little kid start to became complicated, as he didn't felt
comfortable at his own house, when his family started to treat him like a joke
because of his passion for reading and books. The reason that this start to
happen it was because for his family, he was different, his parents encourage
him to get an education, but the extreme way he did it was beyond R’ parents
understandability. Rodriguez didn’t even felt define as what he really was at
school, a” Scholarship boy”, he felt that the term does not really defines his
particularity. It is written most times as the lower class student who is being
helped by his schooling; but in Rodriguez descriptions he goes way beyond that.
After all his
struggles with education and home he decides to make a major decision in his
life about separating his two worlds: his family and his schooling. Rodriguez
decided to enjoyed or dedicate most of his time to his studies, and
concentration on his success, and leave his home life and family behind. He
felt that education was changing him, and that he didn't want to miss the
opportunity of being successful. But at the same moment on his heart and soul a
desire for “Self- Recognition” was born, a desire that he wasn't able to achieve
for a long time because the way he challenge some norms of being in the “Regime
of truth”. Here it when we take into accounts Foucault explanation about the
desire for self-recognition.
In “Foucaultian
Subjects”(Butler 18) Butlers explains how for Foucault the “Regime of Truth”,
makes possible a “Self- recognition”. Or better, we can say that this “regimes
of truth” that he talks about, structure these events of recognitions that in
some sense determines who will and will not be approved as a subject. As
Foucault examines “who I am”, given that regime of truth? In the other hand
Rodriguez ask him self a similar question, “who I am”, or “who can I be”?
Rodriguez wonders himself how can he get recognition in his familiar and
schooled realms.
The
conflict with this desire of recognition comes when Rodriguez feels that the
terms of identity available to him does not define his particularity. For
example the characteristics that defines him as scholarship boy, coming from a
Mexican American working class family and being at the same time a good and a
bad student does not really defines him as a particularity. Going deeper into
this point of getting recognition in his account of the self, we can see as an
example how Rodriguez feels that the scholarship boy as a subjectivity does not
match with whom he was as a little boy and as an adult too. Hoggart and
Rodriguez agree in many things when it comes to characterize the “scholarship
boy”. Hoggart mention how this boy
spends most of his time alone, and in classroom, and how from anxiety brings
success for them. In them balance is lost. They still want to be part of their
family circle but they cant since the separate their lives in different worlds
putting intense concentration in is studies. The scholarship boy needs to spend
a lot of time studying at nights where they find silent and concentration. Brooding and sensitive are other words they
use to refer to it. Hoggart mention “Good Student, troubled son”, while also
Rodriguez mention that the Scholarship boy is “ a very bad student, a mimic,
and lack of opinion and thought”. R’
didn’t feel this way, he felt that this boy that we are describing wasn’t him. Wanted
to gained some recognition at this point was really hard, since Rodriguez
challenge the norms of being, like for example in his American school the
native language was English while Rodriguez one was spanish, while he
challenges this “Regime of Truth” at school Rodriguez start to run the danger
of being “excluded” in some sense according to Foucault.
If
we start reflecting for a moment here about what I’ve just mention, makes us
think about factors that affect the scenes of self-recognition. Going more
specific I am referring to “language” and “literacy” which are the key to R’
achieving Self-social recognition. It is very impressive to think how National
languages seem to dominate others, depriving you to get recognition from
teachers and classmates.
Rodriguez at his
house was passing through some difficult moments. He get so engaged with his
readings and his books, that he started to hid in some places of his house to
dedicated to what was his priority. To his family this was not normal, or
better says, they where not used to this so in some way R´ become the family
joke. Rodriguez desire for “Self- Recognition” was big; he wanted to get some
acceptance of his parents. As Hoggart explains the idea of the working class
family “living room” as a social space; was
the place where the family get reunited, they started talking with each other,
telling jokes, and to laugh until they cant stop; in comparison with Rodriguez
house, at this moments R’ wasn't engaging with them, since he prefer to be
reading his books. These are the kinds of moments where Rodriguez start to
challenge again the “collective ethos”(Butlers 1); I mean the social frame
where he belongs which in this case will be his family. In some way he critiques
the norms of being, while running the risk of being excluded of it. I will like
to go back for a moment to “Foucaultian Subject” when Butler argues Foucault
idea of “Self-reflexion” that he calls
REFLEXIVITY. If we compare this to the example that I just mention, it means
that giving that social space that is the living room there are some kinds of
norms that tell you what you can and you cannot do giving that social space.
After having his “reflexivity” moment Rodriguez ask him self then, who can I be
in this social space, in this “Regime of Truth”?
Rodriguez
challenge the norms that defines the student as a subject at school, and the
norms of being at his home, and this explain us why he might feel excluded in
his social space. He start to become resisting on being excluded, and here is
where for me “Violence” as Adorno addressed it takes place. This particular
points reminds us that this is also about what political struggles are all
about. At this point is where Butler and Adorno question, that after being
excluded, how can I enter again? Connecting this Idea back to Rodriguez the
question we ask is, what can he do to “belong” and be recognize in the living
room (the social space at home) in his own way of being? Or at school, how can he overcome the
issue of being “excluded”, even though English (which is the language spoken in
that collective ethos) is not his native language.
There is always a
moment in life where we wanted to be recognize by others, its normal by nature
that humans what to gain recognition and in order to achieve it they do
different things. Rodriguez also wants to be recognizing in a good way, in a
way he feel comfortable; not as a “scholarship boy” which is something that he
don’t even feel that defines him. But he didn’t get it at home neither at
school, feeling rejected. While trying to find “Self-Recognition”, we passed
though some “Self-defining moments”, which are moments in our lives that have a
huge impact on us, shaping us and defining part of ourselves.
In
achievement of desire, we can find many moments that are “Self-defining
moments” in Rodriguez life. But one of the most powerful was is when at a young
age Rodriguez took a major step in his life by separating his family and his
school; not only that, but also putting his teachers and everything that has to
do with his education first in his life.
“When I reached the third grade, I outgrew such behavior. I became more
tactful, careful to keep separate the two very different worlds of my day. But
then, with ever-increasing intensity, I devoted myself to my studies. I became
bookish, puzzling to all my family. Ambition set me apart. When my brother saw
me struggling home with stacks of library books, he would laugh, shouting:
"Hey, Four Eyes!" My father opened a closet one-day and was startled
to find me inside, reading a novel. My mother would find me reading when I was
supposed to be asleep or helping around the house or playing outside. In a
voice angry or worried or just curious, she'd ask: 'what do you see in your
books?" It became the family's joke. When I was called and wouldn't reply,
someone would say I must have been hiding under my bed with a book.”
(“Achievement of Desire”, Page 516).
This passage is the
one that makes me travel into Rodriguez mind. The way in he writes it, saying
so many things at once, shows all the confusion he was feeling and passing
through. The separation of the two words, his parents worried and angry with
him, becoming the family joke, etc. Lets just imagine for one minute being that
little boy taking major decisions, being afraid of failing, and being different
from your family. All because of to achieve success. This passage is for
Rodriguez a self-defining moment where he choose to set apart his family, and
having to be a family joke, running the risk of someday being excluded from
your family because of being different of them.
I’ve
tried to look back into my past and reflect about a self-defining moment in my
life that I can compare it with Rodriguez moment and I remembered a very sad
moment that really impact and defines me.
It was on March of
2003, I was 9 years old (almost 10). My parents called my 3 brothers and me and
sat us in the sofa of the living room. I remember my mom face with tears in her
eyes, and my dad’s mouth almost trembling; worlds where barely coming out of
him. They reunited us to tell us about they sad decision about getting a
divorce, since things were not going well between them. I think that was one of
the most shocking news that I have ever received. In my young mind I just
couldn’t imagine a family without a father and a mother toghether. The 4 of us
react in a different way. But things didn’t end there, few minutes after my mom
told us that each of us has to make the decision of with whom we wanted to
live, she or my dad. That specific moment when my mom finished to said those
words is what I’ve called “My self-defining moment”.
I
remember that I could barely think, and I felt really confessed. For me it was
so unfear that I have to choose, I didn’t want to choose one of them, I
remember that in my head I was thinking “Both of them or non of them”. I wanted
to get some recognition from part of them, and not to make me choose between
the most important people in my life. Because of all this happening so fast
around me there was only one thing left for me to calm down and think
carefully: a “self reflexive-moment”(Foucault in Butler). I sat alone and start
thinking on my decision about which of them I would like to live with, given
this situation. I couldn’t imagine my life without my mother by my side,
advising me, taking me to school and taking me to the supermarket with her. My
mom and I are very good friends, and I just thought that she never gives up on
anything, then How can I give up on her.
But also for a man, a father figure by its side it is very important. So
in that moment I make my big decision: Since my father works in the hours of the
day, I choose to live with my mom. I remember telling my dad that I promises
that this decision was only because I was a little boy who need its mother, but
that at the moment that I covert myself in a big man, I was moving with him. I
start crying while I express my decision, and then to cry harder when my 2
oldest brothers decide to go with my father, it means a separation also from my
oldest brothers.
The
norms of my family where being challenge, and my parents where asking
recognition in return. Both of them want me to recognize them as the most
important figures for my life in other to choose him or her. While in the other
hand I was only asking recognition of a 9 years old son. I have to admit that
was a divorce to admire since my parents become friends with the pass of the
years. While I was living with mom, I sleep at my father house on weekends and
during weekdays I ate dinner Mondays and Thursdays by his house. All this
arrangement end up helping me and my sibling’s achieving our recognition as
sons and getting them in return recognitions as important figures in our lives,
making them feel that we desire both of them.
Putting this example in what we have being
talking about, I can said that I couldn’t get recognition of my own self, while
Rodriguez couldn’t be recognized by others as he want to. I create this question in my mind that was
affecting me: how can I choose between them if I desire both of them? That
question reminds us when Rodriguez also had two important things in front of
him (his education and his family) and make a decision over one of them. As we
know the self Identity of a person comes from his family, in some sense I
identify my self with my parents; so when something like this divorce happens
that challenge this relationship or this identification, it challenge my self.
All this that was happening just makes me think: Who I am now? Or even further,
what do I desire now? Do I want to stay with mom, or I prefer to go with dad? I
think that this is a good example that can be compare with Rodriguez account of
him self and all the moments that he felt confused, unrecognized, etc. In both
of us story examples, our collective ethos was challenge, and both of us were
in a small age.
To finish I want
to give answers to the questions that I ask before, about who can we be,
regarding the “regime of truth”. As I mention earlier in this essay this regime
of truth tells us what is normal or truth and what is not. The real question I
want to pose here is, why do Rodriguez and I, or better say, why do WE take
these norms as given? The fear and terror come when we feel that we are
challenge by these norms, but the truth is that there is nothing wrong on being
different. Rodriguez struggles while having the risk of being excluded of his
collective ethos, and try’s to find who can he be. The answer is already on his
hands; he should be who he actually is. We need to find the way of achieving
recognition by people who accepts us just how we are, and not changing in order
to get. At the begging R’ feels that he was a kind of unique scholarship boy,
and then I realize that everyone is unique in its own way, and that is that
Uniqueness that makes the Account of Oneself possible; and to has its own
particularity. Everyone question who
they are, but sometimes the answer don’t come so fast, and we can take as
example Rodriguez, who at the end of his story, understood what was important
for him and for his success.
Works Cited
Rodriguez, Richard.
"Achievement of Desire." Ways of Reading: An Anthology for Writers.
9th ed. 516-24. Print.
Butler, Judith. "An Account
of Oneself." Giving an Account of Oneself. New York: Fordham UP,
2005. 4-42. Print.
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