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richard rodriguez

I grew up wanting to be white. That is, to the extent of wanting to be colorless and to feel complete freedom of movement. The other night at a neighborhood restaurant the waiter, after mentioning he had read my books, said about himself, 'I'm white, I'm nothing.' But that was what I wanted, you see, growing up in America -- the freedom of being nothing, the confidence of it, the arrogance of it. And I achieved it.
I've never read any Richard Rodriguez, but he's moved up my list.

Posted by Mike on February 17, 2003 9:44 PM |

Comments

"Brown" is fabulous. We used to read a reader he put together called "The Odyssey Project," because it was designed to teach composition using contrastic rhetoric, or using other people's differing literacy levels to teach how to find the middle ground, which I think, though I don't know if it worked all the time, was supposed to find a racial mix in the middle.

There's lots you could talk about here, and if other teachers could have something to say about this it would be cool: whether the middle ground is raceless or racial.

To help: I guess what the objective was was to get people to use their experiences as what they were to make something that all of us were, by not shying away from being very open about the racial cultural differences that made us, but also to use gender, place, relationships, and etc. to cast a type of yourself, and then use it against each other (not in a bad way) so that evntually the differences would glide into each other and melt.

Posted by: byoi! | February 18, 2003 2:10 AM

I believe Richard Rodriguez is the author of one of my favorite quotations: "There are things so personal that they can only be told to strangers."

Posted by: V.S. | February 20, 2003 3:24 PM

i'm working on a paper covering richard rodriguez as we speak. he is one conflicted fellow -- but in no way does he ascribe to any ethnic model, but embodies an identity more ambiguous that arguably is more trancendental regarding race and ethnicity than any other model we have.

i'm in love with the guy -- i hate his politics, but man, does he have balls.

Posted by: ms lauren | May 2, 2003 1:59 AM

Does anyone know Richard Rodriguez's email? If so, please email me. It would be MUCH appreciated. Thank you.

Posted by: Melissa | August 6, 2004 9:27 PM

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