Richard Rodriguez was born into the Chicano community. He devoted hi entire life to get the most out of his education that he could. He wanted to be better than his non-English speaking parents. Rodriquez worked very hard and at time educating himself was all he did, he lacked a social life and a realationship with his family. A scholar named Richard Hoggart wrote a book named The Uses of Literacy In this book there is a description of the “scholarship boy.” After reading this Rodgriguez realized that this is a description of his life. He became so caught up in trying to be better than his parents that when he had reache the highest point of his success it was empty success. Richard felt that the good life for him was going to come through education. I wasn’t until he was a professional at the British Museum that he realized what he was missing his entire life. He also realized that he was too smart. When he took a step back and realized that life is more than books and intellects he turned back to his roots and family. Richard was lucky that he finally realized what made him happy. Although at one point in time he thought it would be education he was ablt to find out what truly made him happy and to him, happiness was his good life.
good live# 3
September 28, 2007 by almostdone
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I really enjoyed this peice, as you did as well. It goes hand in hand with life being about balance and also being able to enjoy things on your journey to the good life. I think as students, society pushes us through education due to the fact that without it we will not receive good paying jobs. But on the way there, the journey, is just as important as getting there because it will make us into the well-rounded individiual that society is really looking for, and is most rewarding in the end.
Also, this piece isn’t just about Rodriguez being (or realizing he’s) “too smart,” but that he is (or was, rather) a certain kind of smart. He was often void of his own ideas, instead just giving back to teachers what they wanted to hear, what he’d memorized from all his hours of studying.