Not Everything Is Great When You Reach Success

ENGW1111, Villanueva, Project 2

Not everything is great, when you reach success!

Reading, reading and more reading—that is all life was about for Richard Rodriguez. The only thing he knew since the beginning was that, in order to have success in his life, he had to read as much as he could. Therefore, desiring to be educated, to succeed academically, to become part of the elite group he wanted to belong to, Rodriguez read. Perhaps what he desired most of all was to be better than his parents. But who knows? He does not even seem to know. He just feels so at peace every time he reads, peace he finds in “the silence of reading”

Whether or not, Rodriguez´s desire was just to become an academic or to surpass his parents, but he had no idea of what that success, would actually cost him. Without afraid to be wrong; I state that Rodriguez wanted to succeed in their education, but he had no idea what that dream would cost him. Despite success might have been the most important for him, he had no desire to lose his connection with his family, but he knew that the ethnic background and his family’s social status were issues that would interfere for him to achieve his professional success.

Not judging Rodriguez at all, since every person has a desire to success in something, success is a very desirable thing, but it always bears a cost. Every gain requires a sacrifice, as it was for Rodriguez, it applies also for my life. Feeling connected with the general factors of Rodriguez success, because now a day I’m a student as Rodriguez was. Furthermore, I’m even more associated with Rodriguez, because today I desire to have success in my career as the principal object, no matter what I have to do, or what I have to leave behind on my way.

Rodriguez makes clear that, he basically desire to be successful, but he also felt the desire to stay close with his family, something that he could not do it as he says with his own words “Here is a child who cannot forget that his academic success distances him from a life he loved, even from his own memory of himself” (Rodriguez 518). So he loved the life he had at home. It was not his intention to lose the relationship with his parents, but the desire of performance in education was even bigger. At the begging of his teaching, Rodriguez explained that he tried to stay close with his family for a while, even though his parents caused him embarrassment with his teachers. In order to achieve his main goal, Rodriguez finished giving up in the intent to maintain the closeness with his parents. Going away from the entire situation at home that was not helping to keep moving up in his career to success. Indeed, at the time he was separated from his family, he also separated from their own ethnic background, put aside his culture, to integrate into the American culture who prevalent in his classroom. Being this in some way related to my life now days, because I also left my family behind in Mexico, in order to finish my career at another country. Nonetheless, the reasons that made Rodriguez left his family relationship is very different from my reasons of why I left my family in Mexico.

Rodriguez comes from a family where the parents, did not have a good education background. Rodriguez found himself simultaneously living in two different environments. That's why he closely identifies himself with Hoggart’s “scholarship boy.” As Rodriguez writes, “What he grasps very well is that the scholarship boy must move between environments, his home and the classroom, which are at social extremes, opposed” (517). That's how Rodriguez viewed his circumstance, and it took a long time for him to be able to sketch the cultural differences in his daily life. By the end of the day, leaving aside his family also caused him to lose a little of their notion of the social status where he belongs. In the classroom, he was only one more student and he was only judged for be a good student, no matter whatever their social class. Factor that motivated Rodriguez to continue attached to his classroom and their teachers.

Moreover, Rodriguez got distanced from his family not only in relationship terms, but even disclaimed the personal connection with his family. Trying to delete any clue of his social status where he came from, seen in how every time Rodriguez reacts when people tell to him the expression: “Your parents must be very proud” (515). For him, a phrase that does not like too much. He even ended up hating the moments when people was saying that phrase, as he reflected in the text. I consider that sentence, makes Rodriguez reminded him of where he came from, bringing his mind back to remember his family background. Memories that he already put aside to continue on his way to success. Memories of family happiness that nobody can skip from thoughts, but at the same time he realized that those were the things that could stopped his succeed. A situation of mixed feelings, that was what made that Rodriguez react in the wrong way to that phrase. Although for me totally a phrase that every time people told me that, it makes my mind think the feelings my parents must be feeling, by seeing me gaining diplomas, degrees or even for a simple award in a football tournament. Never forgetting that my desire to achieve academic success would not have been real thanks to my parents that gave me the opportunity to study in a private school. In the case of Rodriguez, his reaction was the opposite as mine “Yes, my parents were very proud. I knew it. But my parents regarded my progress with more than mere prime. They endured my early precocious behavior – but with what private anger and humiliation?” (523). Trying to understand Rodriguez, but never leaving behind the point that he was the one who chose the life in silence with his books. Besides, sometimes every accomplishment you achieve in the school, it makes you think that you are the only one who made it possible, ending being pessimistic and acknowledging people who supported you to fulfill your goal. Perhaps, Rodriguez believes his parents maybe did not even know the entire education, preparation and experience required to get the awards he won during his education, being this the reason of his react. For so small that it was the help of his parents, but without them, Rodriguez's first desire to achieve success in education would not be real, something that Rodriguez must have forgotten at that time when people remark his parents.

Gradually when he started to move away from his family.

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