What do you think?
Rate this book
Days of Obligation: An Argument With My Mexican Father
Rodriguez's acclaimed first book, Hunger of Memory raised a fierce controversy with its views on bilingualism and alternative action. Now, in a series of intelligent and candid essays, Rodriguez ranges over five centuries to consider the moral and spiritual landscapes of Mexico and the US and their impact on his soul.
256 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1992
22 people are currently reading
702 people want to read
About the author
Richard Rodríguez
53 books72 followersRichard Rodríguez is an American writer who became famous as the author of Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodríguez (1982). His work has appeared in Harper's, The American Scholar, the Los Ángeles Times Magazine, and The New Republic. Richard's awards include the Frankel Medal from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the International Journalism Award from the World Affairs Council of California. He has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in non-fiction; and the National Book Critics' Award.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews
December 5, 2008
This is a short discussion essay I wrote in Spring 2007 regarding this book:
What if I Am You?:
Cultural Hybridity in Richard Rodriguez’s Days of Obligation
Tanya Collings
What if we are not diverse? What if I feel myself becoming like you? What does that mean? What if I find myself weeping reading your story? What if I find myself walking like you do? What if I find myself singing your songs?
-Richard Rodriguez
Richard Rodriguez’s desire for a common culture—along with his stance on affirmative action and bilingual education—has led to passionate controversy. According to many Chicano/a historiographers, “his work may be irredeemable” (Decker 125). Tomas Rivera, author of the acclaimed And the Earth Did Not Swallow Him, has even suggested that Rodriguez’s writing is a result of an “inferiority complex” that “clearly illustrates a colonized mind” (as quoted in Decker 124). I would argue that Days of Obligation is indeed the result of a colonized mind. In fact, Rivera’s accusation is central to the deeper theoretical undercurrents that are flowing beneath Rodriguez’s lyrical prose. However, a “colonized” view does not necessarily need to be analyzed negatively, and instead can be filtered through the contemporary theory of “cultural hybridity”.
Days of Obligation is packed with examples of cultural hybridity. This term is used to describe a new theoretical approach to the study of culture, particularly in relationship to globalization. Renato Rosaldo comments that “hybridity can be understood as the ongoing condition of all human cultures, which contain no zones of purity because they undergo a continuous process of transculturation” (1995). Rodriguez is a strong advocate for this hybridized, Creolized, “Must-go Soup” view of ethnic and racial identity. His term brown is synonymous with hybridity. The real “browning of America” has little to do with skin color. In an interview, Rodriguez explained : “I am impure, I am mixed, and I am both raped and rapist, and I am both aggrieved and sinned…that notion of being both parties in history…to be really brown is to be impure” (182). In the view of Richard Rodriguez, to identify oneself only as a Chicano/a or a Mexican American takes away from the true complexity of one’s racial and ethnic identity and furthers the segregation of humanity.
In Days of Obligation Rodriguez describes modern Catholicism as an Indian religion that will assume the “aspect of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Brown skin” (20). The use of brown in this passage is both literal and metaphorical. The Catholic Church has an extremely high percentage of Latin American members who have been classified, albeit often incorrectly, as brown-skinned. He is also referring to ideological fusion, the deflowering of tradition, and the deeper browning of an existing brown-that-was-never-really-pure-anyway.
Mexico City is described as the embodiment of contemporary hybridity:
In the distance, at its depths, Mexico City stands as the prophetic example. Mexico City is modern in ways that “multiracial,” ethnically “diverse” New York City is not yet. Mexico City is centuries more modern than racially “pure,” provincial Tokyo…Mexico City is the capital of modernity, for in the sixteenth century, under the tutelage of a curios Indian whore, under the patronage of the Queen of heaven, Mexico initiated the task of the twenty-first century—the renewal of the old, the known world through miscegenation. Mexico carries the idea of a round world to its biological conclusion. (25)
In this passage, Rodriguez uses Mexico as Earth’s future. With rapid increases in travel and mass communication, the world is becoming browner by the second. We must become accustomed to a demanding flow of cultural exchange and cultural clash, because there are fatal consequences for those who cannot graft onto the global tree. It is this philosophy that informs his view on affirmative action and bilingual education.
Americans are often defined as the ultimate culture snatchers. I’ve often heard sentiments in field research such as “Why can’t Americans just be themselves?” and “Why do whites have to steal our culture?” With increasing speed, the United States has become one haphazardly stitched New Age patchwork quilt. Addictive borrowing is the culture. Rodriguez speaks to this in Days of Obligation:
No belief is more cherished by Americans, no belief is more typical of America, then the belief that one can choose to be free of American culture. One can pick and choose. Learn Spanish. Study Buddhism… My Mexican father was never so American as when he wished his children might cultivate Chinese friends. (171)
When Rodriguez calls for a common culture he is speaking of hybridity, not assimilation. Ethnic assimilation has never been very efficient (Lahood). When Europe swallowed the Americas, it processed those cultural calories and, as the old saying goes, you are what you eat. Richard Rodriguez was born a mestizo—brown, impure, untraditional—in an America still being digested by a gorged European belly. As a mestizo he is both the colonizer and the colonized; he cannot help but express a colonized view. However, Rodriguez does not see his plight as inherently negative or conformists. As a unique individual he has the power to contribute to the beautification of the burgeoning browness. In Rodriguez’s own words, “to argue for a common culture is not to propose an exclusionary culture or a static culture. The classroom is always adding to the common text, because America is a dynamic society” (170).
Bibliography
Decker, Jeffrey Louis. "Mr. Secrets: Review of Days of Obligation: an Argument with My Mexican Father by Richard Rodriguez". Transition 1993(61): 124-133.
Lahood, Greg. Paradise Bound: A perennial tradition or an unseen process of cosmologiacal hybridization. Anthropology of Consciousness. 2008(18), 2008 [Forthcoming].
Rodriguez, Richard. Days of Obligation: An Argument with My Mexican Father. Viking Penguin USA, 1992.
Rosaldo, Renato. “Foreward” to Garcia Canclini’s Hybrid Cultures: xi-xvii, 1995.
Torres, Hector A and Richard Rodriguez. “ ‘I Don’t Think I Exist’: An Interview with Richard Rodriguez”. Melus 2003(28):164-202.
What if I Am You?:
Cultural Hybridity in Richard Rodriguez’s Days of Obligation
Tanya Collings
What if we are not diverse? What if I feel myself becoming like you? What does that mean? What if I find myself weeping reading your story? What if I find myself walking like you do? What if I find myself singing your songs?
-Richard Rodriguez
Richard Rodriguez’s desire for a common culture—along with his stance on affirmative action and bilingual education—has led to passionate controversy. According to many Chicano/a historiographers, “his work may be irredeemable” (Decker 125). Tomas Rivera, author of the acclaimed And the Earth Did Not Swallow Him, has even suggested that Rodriguez’s writing is a result of an “inferiority complex” that “clearly illustrates a colonized mind” (as quoted in Decker 124). I would argue that Days of Obligation is indeed the result of a colonized mind. In fact, Rivera’s accusation is central to the deeper theoretical undercurrents that are flowing beneath Rodriguez’s lyrical prose. However, a “colonized” view does not necessarily need to be analyzed negatively, and instead can be filtered through the contemporary theory of “cultural hybridity”.
Days of Obligation is packed with examples of cultural hybridity. This term is used to describe a new theoretical approach to the study of culture, particularly in relationship to globalization. Renato Rosaldo comments that “hybridity can be understood as the ongoing condition of all human cultures, which contain no zones of purity because they undergo a continuous process of transculturation” (1995). Rodriguez is a strong advocate for this hybridized, Creolized, “Must-go Soup” view of ethnic and racial identity. His term brown is synonymous with hybridity. The real “browning of America” has little to do with skin color. In an interview, Rodriguez explained : “I am impure, I am mixed, and I am both raped and rapist, and I am both aggrieved and sinned…that notion of being both parties in history…to be really brown is to be impure” (182). In the view of Richard Rodriguez, to identify oneself only as a Chicano/a or a Mexican American takes away from the true complexity of one’s racial and ethnic identity and furthers the segregation of humanity.
In Days of Obligation Rodriguez describes modern Catholicism as an Indian religion that will assume the “aspect of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Brown skin” (20). The use of brown in this passage is both literal and metaphorical. The Catholic Church has an extremely high percentage of Latin American members who have been classified, albeit often incorrectly, as brown-skinned. He is also referring to ideological fusion, the deflowering of tradition, and the deeper browning of an existing brown-that-was-never-really-pure-anyway.
Mexico City is described as the embodiment of contemporary hybridity:
In the distance, at its depths, Mexico City stands as the prophetic example. Mexico City is modern in ways that “multiracial,” ethnically “diverse” New York City is not yet. Mexico City is centuries more modern than racially “pure,” provincial Tokyo…Mexico City is the capital of modernity, for in the sixteenth century, under the tutelage of a curios Indian whore, under the patronage of the Queen of heaven, Mexico initiated the task of the twenty-first century—the renewal of the old, the known world through miscegenation. Mexico carries the idea of a round world to its biological conclusion. (25)
In this passage, Rodriguez uses Mexico as Earth’s future. With rapid increases in travel and mass communication, the world is becoming browner by the second. We must become accustomed to a demanding flow of cultural exchange and cultural clash, because there are fatal consequences for those who cannot graft onto the global tree. It is this philosophy that informs his view on affirmative action and bilingual education.
Americans are often defined as the ultimate culture snatchers. I’ve often heard sentiments in field research such as “Why can’t Americans just be themselves?” and “Why do whites have to steal our culture?” With increasing speed, the United States has become one haphazardly stitched New Age patchwork quilt. Addictive borrowing is the culture. Rodriguez speaks to this in Days of Obligation:
No belief is more cherished by Americans, no belief is more typical of America, then the belief that one can choose to be free of American culture. One can pick and choose. Learn Spanish. Study Buddhism… My Mexican father was never so American as when he wished his children might cultivate Chinese friends. (171)
When Rodriguez calls for a common culture he is speaking of hybridity, not assimilation. Ethnic assimilation has never been very efficient (Lahood). When Europe swallowed the Americas, it processed those cultural calories and, as the old saying goes, you are what you eat. Richard Rodriguez was born a mestizo—brown, impure, untraditional—in an America still being digested by a gorged European belly. As a mestizo he is both the colonizer and the colonized; he cannot help but express a colonized view. However, Rodriguez does not see his plight as inherently negative or conformists. As a unique individual he has the power to contribute to the beautification of the burgeoning browness. In Rodriguez’s own words, “to argue for a common culture is not to propose an exclusionary culture or a static culture. The classroom is always adding to the common text, because America is a dynamic society” (170).
Bibliography
Decker, Jeffrey Louis. "Mr. Secrets: Review of Days of Obligation: an Argument with My Mexican Father by Richard Rodriguez". Transition 1993(61): 124-133.
Lahood, Greg. Paradise Bound: A perennial tradition or an unseen process of cosmologiacal hybridization. Anthropology of Consciousness. 2008(18), 2008 [Forthcoming].
Rodriguez, Richard. Days of Obligation: An Argument with My Mexican Father. Viking Penguin USA, 1992.
Rosaldo, Renato. “Foreward” to Garcia Canclini’s Hybrid Cultures: xi-xvii, 1995.
Torres, Hector A and Richard Rodriguez. “ ‘I Don’t Think I Exist’: An Interview with Richard Rodriguez”. Melus 2003(28):164-202.
January 15, 2008
Rodriguez can come off as professionally broody, a tad too solemn in his meditative pose--those clipped, oracular sentences--but he is a unique stylist and a master of the ruminative-reminiscent personal essay, his chosen mode. 'Late Victorians' is my favorite thing in this book: a collage of affecting anecdotes and musings that coheres into something artful, profound, and exquisitely sad; it strikes me as the best piece he's written.
April 21, 2012
In this and his other collection of personal essays, "Hunger of Memory," Richard Rodriguez describes how becoming an American has been an experience much like Alice's trip through the looking glass. It has distanced him from his Mexican-born parents and separated him almost entirely from his Mexican roots. The central idea running through many of these thoughtful, earnest essays is a heightened awareness of the differences between our public and private lives. They also focus on the impact of education on himself and his siblings as children of Spanish-speaking immigrants.
After reading his books, nothing about becoming American seems as simple as it's often represented in popular fiction and movies. You see, for example, how learning English and the way Americans use it immediately create cultural conflicts. Rodriguez' parents had valued education as a way to get ahead in America. Ironically, the greater success he experienced in school, the further he became removed from the world of his parents.
Still a boy, he lost the ability to converse in Spanish. Becoming a public figure in the English-speaking world, he seemed to betray his ethnic background, which valued privacy and separateness from the English-speaking (gringo) world. Ironically, for all his achievements as an "American," Rodriguez learns that because of his background, he remains in many ways an outsider. Lacking a middle class upbringing, he has passed through the educational system as a "scholarship boy." This term, borrowed from Richard Hoggart's book "The Uses of Literacy," describes the son of working class parents who is granted the privilege of a middle class education, but while rising above his humble origins, never fully transcends them.
The political positions Rodreguez takes as an adult flow as a logical extension from the experiences that shaped him -- especially the benefits of the education he received in a private school. Later there were the benefits that came to him as a "minority student" -- advantages he considered unwarranted. Concerned by poverty in America and the underfunding of schools that would help end poverty, he takes positions that have been unpopular among many educators. In these essays, he challenges the assumptions underlying both affirmative action and bilingual education.
Rodriguez writes with great clarity, and his sentences seem crafted with considerable care. He wants very much to say precisely what he means. And this cannot have been always easy, as many of his ideas grapple with both irony and paradox. Often you read paragraphs that seem to have been thought through deeply, then carefully written and rewritten. The care that he takes in writing these essays reflects a wish to be read carefully. Those who have found reason to be offended, angered, or "bored" by his ideas are evidence that he touches on a great many sensitive issues.
After reading his books, nothing about becoming American seems as simple as it's often represented in popular fiction and movies. You see, for example, how learning English and the way Americans use it immediately create cultural conflicts. Rodriguez' parents had valued education as a way to get ahead in America. Ironically, the greater success he experienced in school, the further he became removed from the world of his parents.
Still a boy, he lost the ability to converse in Spanish. Becoming a public figure in the English-speaking world, he seemed to betray his ethnic background, which valued privacy and separateness from the English-speaking (gringo) world. Ironically, for all his achievements as an "American," Rodriguez learns that because of his background, he remains in many ways an outsider. Lacking a middle class upbringing, he has passed through the educational system as a "scholarship boy." This term, borrowed from Richard Hoggart's book "The Uses of Literacy," describes the son of working class parents who is granted the privilege of a middle class education, but while rising above his humble origins, never fully transcends them.
The political positions Rodreguez takes as an adult flow as a logical extension from the experiences that shaped him -- especially the benefits of the education he received in a private school. Later there were the benefits that came to him as a "minority student" -- advantages he considered unwarranted. Concerned by poverty in America and the underfunding of schools that would help end poverty, he takes positions that have been unpopular among many educators. In these essays, he challenges the assumptions underlying both affirmative action and bilingual education.
Rodriguez writes with great clarity, and his sentences seem crafted with considerable care. He wants very much to say precisely what he means. And this cannot have been always easy, as many of his ideas grapple with both irony and paradox. Often you read paragraphs that seem to have been thought through deeply, then carefully written and rewritten. The care that he takes in writing these essays reflects a wish to be read carefully. Those who have found reason to be offended, angered, or "bored" by his ideas are evidence that he touches on a great many sensitive issues.
January 15, 2017
My god, the language. Many of the critiques against him are probably true--that he is conservative, curmudgeonly, self-loathing, everyone-loathing, elitist--but the language is so hypnotizing and the nuanced and well-informed and I don't care. Haunting to read in January 2017. I can't pull many quotes because they are surrounded by so much context, but here is one:
"If I am a newcomer to your country...I need to know about seventeenth century Puritans in order to make sense of the rebellion I notice everywhere in the American city. Teach me about mad British kings so I will understand the American penchant for iconoclasm. Then teach me about cowboys and Indians; I should know that tragedies created the country that will create me."
"If I am a newcomer to your country...I need to know about seventeenth century Puritans in order to make sense of the rebellion I notice everywhere in the American city. Teach me about mad British kings so I will understand the American penchant for iconoclasm. Then teach me about cowboys and Indians; I should know that tragedies created the country that will create me."
July 21, 2019
I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would--Rodriguez is a phenomenal essayist, and I really liked how well all of this tied together, how well it all worked, and how well it was written. I know that's a little repetitive, but it really cannot be overstated how good of a writer Rodriguez was. I really liked looking at his personal experience with being sort of caught in the middle of American culture and Mexican culture, what was taken from both, what should have been taken from both, how America as a culture is a little weird--I dug it.
September 17, 2024
DNF. I want to be the type of persons that reads books of essays, but I’m simply not
January 14, 2012
Rodriguez writes a rambling, insightful and interesting work
Published by Blackstone Audio in 2008
Duration: 8 hours, 14 minutes
I first learned of Richard Rodriguez on C-Span's Booknotes program. He was an invited guest of First Lady Laura Bush to speak at an author's fair that she started hosting in Texas while she was the First Lady of Texas. Rodriguez was promoting his book Brown at the the time and I thought his observations were wonderful.
Days of Obligations is in a similar vein, but not nearly as focused. He does (primarily) focus on the differences between Mexico and the United States. Two interesting observations from Mexicans about America include: 1) "America is 'Organized'. Passive voice. Rodriguez notes that there seems to be no connection that actual Americans do the organizing. Rather it's almost like it is fate that America is organized. 2) Americans have too much freedom.
Rodriguez digresses from his Mexico/America discussion for an interesting (but off topic) discussion about the gay lifestyle in San Francisco. Perhaps it was meant to be a comparison between Mexicans moving into California and San Francisco's transformation into a beacon for homosexuals. If so, it was poorly correlated, although interesting nonetheless.
His observations on multiculturalism are very interesting. Rodriguez is a hard man to pin down politically. He is a walking dichotomy...
Read more at: http://dwdsreviews.blogspot.com/2012/...
Published by Blackstone Audio in 2008
Duration: 8 hours, 14 minutes
I first learned of Richard Rodriguez on C-Span's Booknotes program. He was an invited guest of First Lady Laura Bush to speak at an author's fair that she started hosting in Texas while she was the First Lady of Texas. Rodriguez was promoting his book Brown at the the time and I thought his observations were wonderful.
Days of Obligations is in a similar vein, but not nearly as focused. He does (primarily) focus on the differences between Mexico and the United States. Two interesting observations from Mexicans about America include: 1) "America is 'Organized'. Passive voice. Rodriguez notes that there seems to be no connection that actual Americans do the organizing. Rather it's almost like it is fate that America is organized. 2) Americans have too much freedom.
Rodriguez digresses from his Mexico/America discussion for an interesting (but off topic) discussion about the gay lifestyle in San Francisco. Perhaps it was meant to be a comparison between Mexicans moving into California and San Francisco's transformation into a beacon for homosexuals. If so, it was poorly correlated, although interesting nonetheless.
His observations on multiculturalism are very interesting. Rodriguez is a hard man to pin down politically. He is a walking dichotomy...
Read more at: http://dwdsreviews.blogspot.com/2012/...
May 3, 2012
Closer to poetry than prose. Even if I often don't agree with Rodriguez's arguments, his writing is precise and brave, and he makes unexpected connections. I wish the chapter 'Asians' had been available to my immigrant parents before they had me. Beautiful, thoughtful, melancholic.
June 16, 2024
mid. confusing and was not what I was expecting. Learned some about Mexican history, identity etc.
September 23, 2025
This being my first real dive into Chicano literature, I have to say I’m really enjoying this so far. I loved the metaphors with the head of Joaquin Murrieta as well as Tijuana. It did seem a little dated, which should be noted but at the same time, how much Chicano literature did we have back then? At the same time, there are many relatable and insightful parts to it. I do value Rodriguez’s writing style, albeit I sometimes had to reread his words to understand his point. One big thing I will disagree with him on is his erasure of true indigenous people. There’s a fine line between when it comes to reclaiming indigenous roots and I feel Rodriguez did undermine the reality that there still are indigenous people who survived the Spanish Inquisition. Their stories should also be told as well. A little acknowledgment of their existence would’ve been nice. Not everyone is mestizaje. On the other hand I can see his struggle with his own identity as a Chicano and I do not want to take anything away from that. I have no skin in that in the way that he does. Him being the gay son of a Mexican immigrant, adds some interesting intersectionality which I might have to revisit in the future. I look forward to delving more into Chicano literature!
March 15, 2018
This book is a series of essays in which the author juxtaposes various aspects of Mexico and America and then offers his interpretations of their meanings. My basic problem with that is that I disagreed with his interpretations frequently.
He seems to feel a strong need to find his own place in the world by dredging up the worst parts of history and laying some kind of personal claim to them even though he has in no way experienced them himself.
This is all done with a great deal of literary language but the overall effect is negative and depressing. I don't pretend to want his view to be uplifting and optimistic, but there are decent aspects to both today's life and yesterday's records, so I think a balanced view would have been more accurate and welcome. I do not recommend this book.
He seems to feel a strong need to find his own place in the world by dredging up the worst parts of history and laying some kind of personal claim to them even though he has in no way experienced them himself.
This is all done with a great deal of literary language but the overall effect is negative and depressing. I don't pretend to want his view to be uplifting and optimistic, but there are decent aspects to both today's life and yesterday's records, so I think a balanced view would have been more accurate and welcome. I do not recommend this book.
April 8, 2024
A much better collection of personal essays than can be found in Hunger of Memory. His thought is more complex, the imagery and use of language more rich. Both structurally and thematically, Rodriguez plays with the dialectics of tragedy and comedy, Catholicism and Protestantism, Mexico and the U.S., the universal and the particular. It would be too easy and wrong-headed to dismiss him as a reactionary conservative due to his opposition to affirmative action and bilingual education, as he frustrates any attempt to place him any specific place on the ideological spectrum through the endless layers of irony in each piece. Rodriguez is everywhere sincere but he’s not without a sense of humor and a dose of self-deprecation. The earlier essays outshine the latter half although there are some good moments in the end.
December 8, 2020
There are some extraordinary essays in here. Some of them I would rank amongst the finest that I’ve ever read (Late Victorians in particular). But Rodríguez is also a complicated man, very much a product of a different time, and some of his perspectives—while understandable—are pretty misguided and narrow-minded IMO (particularly in terms of his views on bilingualism and education in America). That being said, he also has some very earnest, insightful, and wonderful things to say. He has a unique, poetic style to his writing, and some lines will really move you, really stop you in your tracks. All in all, I can’t fault this writer for his perspective, as it is a product of his experience, and something that he clearly believes with sincerity. I appreciated being able to hear even the things that I didn’t agree with because, even in those cases, Rodríguez makes his case with style & care and provides something to think about critically.
October 16, 2022
Hunger of Memory might be Richard Rodriguez’s best known essay collection, but in my view it is a tentative book, an almost too-carefully-rehearsed first step into public discourse. By contrast, Days of Obligation is confident and eager to provoke. I disagreed with some of Rodriguez’s arguments about the dueling cultural legacies of Catholicism and Protestantism, but I read them hungrily nonetheless. It is a lovely collection.
March 10, 2025
I have to commend Rodriguez and the way he engages with topics regarding identity and sexuality. He’s simply fearless in fleshing out ideas that many would never think of uttering especially in todays social climate. His writing his flowery and is done with much finesse which made for an engaging read. I found myself disagreeing with him in some areas especially his take on education and ethnic studies. However, there’s beauty in reading something both engaging and intellectually frustrating.
September 8, 2024
Richard Rodriguez is such a deeply fascinating figure. His essays are so lyrical and masterfully written, you don’t even mind vehemently disagreeing with him sometimes. Oftentimes he’s verbose to his detriment, but you still learn an incredible amount from the insight you do choose to consider helpful. The book is a worthy read, in spite of his “colonized mind.”
October 29, 2018
Lots if history I didn't know. Was interesting how Rodriguez compared and contrasted Mexico with the U. S. Then he tied the compare and contrast to remembering and provided the reader with a memoir.
May 30, 2025
There are sentences that shine concerning the Mexican experience in California and the complexity of of U.S. history. However, there are many chapters that fall into oblivion.
May 25, 2011
Perhaps one of the most difficult aspects of this book is that it is a collection of essays Richard Rodriguez wrote and then collected into one text under the unified theme of the title he chose. It takes a while to identify the recurring themes, and tease out the central points he is making. This is compounded by the frequent references to people a contemporary reader may not be familiar with. This book was originally published almost twenty years ago and I felt like I needed to have a cheat sheet for the people he names that I have no reference for. Whatever confusion I initially had about what he is trying to say in his book, as well as the people involved in his self-actualization, I will say that Rodriguez doesn’t mince his words: his book is filled with aphorisms and observations (often uncomfortable) whose purpose is to be provocative, to challenge the viewpoints the reader approaches the book with. His book directly challenges assumptions of what it means to be Mexican/Californian, Catholic/Protestant, or gay/straight, and shakes them up to see if there is any truth to these labels.
This complex investigation into race and ethnicity, religion, and gender/sexuality takes place over the span of all the essays and forms the central question all of the essays revolve around. In the chapter titled “India” Rodriguez explores the story of La Malinche, who is alternately embraced and repudiated by the Mexican culture. She is viewed as the means by which Europe entered Mexico as conquerors: She served as the native interpreter for Cortez and eventually became his lover, giving birth to a son who has come to represent the ultimate conquest of Mexico through reproductive hybridization. Rodriguez identifies with La Malinche, and sees himself as a “cultural interpreter” who uses language to bridge the worlds of his past and present, but this is done in an affectionate, ironic tone for a non-Mexican audience. Through his examples the reader can see that one of his favorite rhetorical strategies in his essays is exaggeration, almost to the point of caricature, in order to make his points. Of Tijuana he says, “The lustier truth is that Mexican cynicism met American hypocrisy in Tijuana…Mexico lay down, and the gringo paid in the morning” (88). Of cultural diversity in America he claims, “[f]all into the Melting Pot, ease into the Melting Pot, or jump into the Melting Pot—it makes no difference—you will find yourself a stranger to your parents, a stranger to your own memory of yourself” (161). Ultimately, Mexico and California are hybridized as much as the child of Cortez and La Malinche, so much so that now it is impossible to divide the two and identify these spaces as Mexican/American or English/Spanish speaking.
I most related to this book through Rodriguez’s discussion of what it means to be first generation American, still connected to my parents’ culture, but having to find my way in the world they decided to deliver me into: “The child of immigrant parents is supposed to perch on a hyphen, taking only the dose of America he needs to advance in America” (159). Although he sympathizes with the immigrant’s desire to protect their culture he chides the mother who says “she does not want American children”: “Foolish mother. She should have thought of that before she came. She will live to see that America takes its meaning from adolescence. She will have American children” (161). This is the reality Rodriguez struggles with, tries to come to terms with: Because he is “born at the destination” of his parent’s relocation to California, he has no choice but to create and navigate a third space between two cultures (208). Despite this, Rodriguez comes to terms with walking between Mexico and America because “California was elemental to me, and I could no more regret California than I could regret myself” (218).
Overall, I enjoyed this book far more than I thought I would. Rodriguez doesn’t attempt to hold his reader at arm’s length with sophisticated language, preferring to make his case with vivid prose that contains powerful and engaging imagery. Although I believe that his strategy of handling national, sexual, gender, racial, and religious identity all in in one book is ambitious, his life as a gay Mexican-American Catholic gives him a unique and subversive perspective that makes this book and interesting and compelling read.
This complex investigation into race and ethnicity, religion, and gender/sexuality takes place over the span of all the essays and forms the central question all of the essays revolve around. In the chapter titled “India” Rodriguez explores the story of La Malinche, who is alternately embraced and repudiated by the Mexican culture. She is viewed as the means by which Europe entered Mexico as conquerors: She served as the native interpreter for Cortez and eventually became his lover, giving birth to a son who has come to represent the ultimate conquest of Mexico through reproductive hybridization. Rodriguez identifies with La Malinche, and sees himself as a “cultural interpreter” who uses language to bridge the worlds of his past and present, but this is done in an affectionate, ironic tone for a non-Mexican audience. Through his examples the reader can see that one of his favorite rhetorical strategies in his essays is exaggeration, almost to the point of caricature, in order to make his points. Of Tijuana he says, “The lustier truth is that Mexican cynicism met American hypocrisy in Tijuana…Mexico lay down, and the gringo paid in the morning” (88). Of cultural diversity in America he claims, “[f]all into the Melting Pot, ease into the Melting Pot, or jump into the Melting Pot—it makes no difference—you will find yourself a stranger to your parents, a stranger to your own memory of yourself” (161). Ultimately, Mexico and California are hybridized as much as the child of Cortez and La Malinche, so much so that now it is impossible to divide the two and identify these spaces as Mexican/American or English/Spanish speaking.
I most related to this book through Rodriguez’s discussion of what it means to be first generation American, still connected to my parents’ culture, but having to find my way in the world they decided to deliver me into: “The child of immigrant parents is supposed to perch on a hyphen, taking only the dose of America he needs to advance in America” (159). Although he sympathizes with the immigrant’s desire to protect their culture he chides the mother who says “she does not want American children”: “Foolish mother. She should have thought of that before she came. She will live to see that America takes its meaning from adolescence. She will have American children” (161). This is the reality Rodriguez struggles with, tries to come to terms with: Because he is “born at the destination” of his parent’s relocation to California, he has no choice but to create and navigate a third space between two cultures (208). Despite this, Rodriguez comes to terms with walking between Mexico and America because “California was elemental to me, and I could no more regret California than I could regret myself” (218).
Overall, I enjoyed this book far more than I thought I would. Rodriguez doesn’t attempt to hold his reader at arm’s length with sophisticated language, preferring to make his case with vivid prose that contains powerful and engaging imagery. Although I believe that his strategy of handling national, sexual, gender, racial, and religious identity all in in one book is ambitious, his life as a gay Mexican-American Catholic gives him a unique and subversive perspective that makes this book and interesting and compelling read.
January 10, 2010
Richard Rodriguez, Ree-car-do, as Father Huerta calls him, has written numerous essays chronicling his struggle to make sense of himself as an “American” of Mexican descent. Rodriguez’s essays are a skillful balance of the personal and the historical. In Days of Obligation, Rodriguez beautifully documents his dilemma. It is his liminality, his hovering unsteadily between two fixed states that Rodriguez articulates in this collection of essays. As he travels the United States and Mexico, this liminality is expressed in specific dichotomies: his world is split between the future and the past, optimism and pessimism, comedy and tragedy, Protestantism and Catholicism, the role of mother and father, and the idea of Anglo purity, and opposed to being “mixed.”
Rodriguez also delves subtly into his homosexuality, and what this means for him as a member of community that values traditional family life. Rodriguez’s position may seem tragic: he feels a constant pull from Old Mexico—the Mexico of his parents—and yet he feels himself to be deeply “American.” Rodriguez is caught between these rigid positions, he finds himself in the borderlands, in flux, speaking of multiple identity and its fluidity where Mexico meets the United States.
Rodriguez’s anxiety is that things have fundamentally changed, that in spite of our nostalgia, we cannot go home, we are not the people that our parents were. But perhaps his position is not so tragic after all. Rodriguez credits mestizaje, the ability to mix and to absorb, with survival. As Rodriguez writes, “The Indian has chosen to survive, to consort with the living, to live in the city, to crawl on her hands and knees, if need be, to Mexico City or L.A. I take it as an Indian achievement that I am alive.” The Indian’s ability to survive, and to absorb becomes Rodriguez’s ability to absorb and survive. For Rodriguez, acknowledging that he is a mestizo does nothing to resolve his conflicts. It is simply a state of being that is inevitable. Rodriguez is a product of events far removed from him, for “[i:]n Mexico the European and the Indian consorted.The ravishment of fabulous Tenochtitlán ended in a marriage of blood.” For Rodriguez, mestizaje is not a matter of choice; it is a matter of biology, which we cannot escape.
In Days of Obligation, we get the sense that the relationship between the United States and Mexico may be irreconcilable. Mexicans and Mexican Americans are undeniably different. Though we may share the mad Mexican mother, it is our father, the United States who pulls us north. This father is an optimist, believes in new beginnings, starting over, moving west. Mexico is the past, as Rodriguez writes, “Mexico was memory—not mine.” Indeed, if we progress and are successful in the United States, we become that much more removed from our Mexican mother. We are pained by the truth when Rodriguez declares, “We are no longer Mexicans. We are professional Mexicans. We hire Mexicans.” This dilemma happens on both sides of the border. Rodriguez speaks of being a tourist, and of “Mexico condescend[ing:] to take our order…But the table is not cleared; the table will never be cleared.”
Richard has never been embraced by Chicanismo because of his stances contra bi-lingual education and affirmative action—his politics are tough to reconcile, but they are deeply thought out. And besides, he writes beautifully. By far my most favourite essay written, "Late Victorians" appears in this text. Give his writing—though maybe not his politics—a chance. His politics challenge my own, but his prose is gorgeous.
Rodriguez also delves subtly into his homosexuality, and what this means for him as a member of community that values traditional family life. Rodriguez’s position may seem tragic: he feels a constant pull from Old Mexico—the Mexico of his parents—and yet he feels himself to be deeply “American.” Rodriguez is caught between these rigid positions, he finds himself in the borderlands, in flux, speaking of multiple identity and its fluidity where Mexico meets the United States.
Rodriguez’s anxiety is that things have fundamentally changed, that in spite of our nostalgia, we cannot go home, we are not the people that our parents were. But perhaps his position is not so tragic after all. Rodriguez credits mestizaje, the ability to mix and to absorb, with survival. As Rodriguez writes, “The Indian has chosen to survive, to consort with the living, to live in the city, to crawl on her hands and knees, if need be, to Mexico City or L.A. I take it as an Indian achievement that I am alive.” The Indian’s ability to survive, and to absorb becomes Rodriguez’s ability to absorb and survive. For Rodriguez, acknowledging that he is a mestizo does nothing to resolve his conflicts. It is simply a state of being that is inevitable. Rodriguez is a product of events far removed from him, for “[i:]n Mexico the European and the Indian consorted.The ravishment of fabulous Tenochtitlán ended in a marriage of blood.” For Rodriguez, mestizaje is not a matter of choice; it is a matter of biology, which we cannot escape.
In Days of Obligation, we get the sense that the relationship between the United States and Mexico may be irreconcilable. Mexicans and Mexican Americans are undeniably different. Though we may share the mad Mexican mother, it is our father, the United States who pulls us north. This father is an optimist, believes in new beginnings, starting over, moving west. Mexico is the past, as Rodriguez writes, “Mexico was memory—not mine.” Indeed, if we progress and are successful in the United States, we become that much more removed from our Mexican mother. We are pained by the truth when Rodriguez declares, “We are no longer Mexicans. We are professional Mexicans. We hire Mexicans.” This dilemma happens on both sides of the border. Rodriguez speaks of being a tourist, and of “Mexico condescend[ing:] to take our order…But the table is not cleared; the table will never be cleared.”
Richard has never been embraced by Chicanismo because of his stances contra bi-lingual education and affirmative action—his politics are tough to reconcile, but they are deeply thought out. And besides, he writes beautifully. By far my most favourite essay written, "Late Victorians" appears in this text. Give his writing—though maybe not his politics—a chance. His politics challenge my own, but his prose is gorgeous.
September 24, 2012
Richard Rodriguez is a vey enlightening writer for Hispanics to read. Perhaps THE only one worth remembering. Like many of popular Hispanic writers he tackles the confusion, discovery and self-hatred of what it is to be an educated person straddling multiple cultures and subcultures. However, this is not what makes him worthwhile. If all he did was narrate an unexamined cultural vocabulary, he would be of no more transcendence than Julia Avarez playing into US identity politics and labels. Another Latino writer with no further teleological curiosity. Instead, Rodriguez writes from a very exacting self-criticism of the labels and cultural dispositions he accepts and of their veracity. He is not looking for superficial identity that separates him, instead he is looking for the spiritual and ideological markers that make Hindus into Hispanics. I'm not sure he goes far enough to throw off the chains of superficial identity.... but that he should want to is exciting for those of us who are tired of reading novels where Hispanics close themselves off from either past or future human experience, instead of finding the common thread de aca y alla. And what is he throwing them off for? I'm not sure he intended it, but he's saying that instead of asking 'What is it to be hispanic', we should ask 'What is it to be a creature?'
Catholics will find this book satisfying. Many will thrill at Rodriguez' unexpected orthodoxy in dealing with one of the more dissolute dioceses of the US. Many will be made aware of the depths of their own catechesis, because of Rodriguez' theological lens. Rodriguez perceives everything from what he deems an emotional lens: being member of a universal irishness, knowing that mother figures are the wider door, his instinct for spiritual problems and his subtle critique of absolutes. It is hard to know the depth of his Catholicism, where he quarrels with the father (authority figures), I'll have to re-read, but I am sure that he has humbly framed the world where he should begin.... Now all he needs is to follow through in another book and in his life.....
Catholics will find this book satisfying. Many will thrill at Rodriguez' unexpected orthodoxy in dealing with one of the more dissolute dioceses of the US. Many will be made aware of the depths of their own catechesis, because of Rodriguez' theological lens. Rodriguez perceives everything from what he deems an emotional lens: being member of a universal irishness, knowing that mother figures are the wider door, his instinct for spiritual problems and his subtle critique of absolutes. It is hard to know the depth of his Catholicism, where he quarrels with the father (authority figures), I'll have to re-read, but I am sure that he has humbly framed the world where he should begin.... Now all he needs is to follow through in another book and in his life.....
September 9, 2012
This great essayist displays his understanding for what it means to be a person of mixed heritage in a country of absolutes. Separated from its southern neighbor in both mind and space--nationalistic, cultural supremacy and the U.S.-Mexican border--America for Rodriguez is the land of failed promises, whether it's the eponymous "dream" or the over-simplified melting pot descriptor.
Yet, this work is not concerned with criticizing America, but rather with getting to the hard questions occupying the state of being an American citizen. What obligations do we have to the cultures we subsumed and at the same time rejected as inferior? Does the color of my skin make my endeavors more praiseworthy in this country after we consider American history?
Does my middle-class upbringing make those same achievements duller in a society that worships at the altar of rags-to-riches (though it in fact feeds on the cancerous sustenance of holy corporations)?
Is every American, stripped of cultural heritage, nothing more than an outsider ever trying to fit in?
Days of Obligation is also about family, specifically the reconciliation of father and son, of coming to understand the widely different orbits each can occupy and not being disappointed when juxtaposing the visions and realities of progenitor and progeny alike. Here is where Rodriguez's writing shines the most, perhaps because it is what he felt he most needed to work out in exercise.
Rodriguez is a great writer and this is an impressive show of writing.
Yet, this work is not concerned with criticizing America, but rather with getting to the hard questions occupying the state of being an American citizen. What obligations do we have to the cultures we subsumed and at the same time rejected as inferior? Does the color of my skin make my endeavors more praiseworthy in this country after we consider American history?
Does my middle-class upbringing make those same achievements duller in a society that worships at the altar of rags-to-riches (though it in fact feeds on the cancerous sustenance of holy corporations)?
Is every American, stripped of cultural heritage, nothing more than an outsider ever trying to fit in?
Days of Obligation is also about family, specifically the reconciliation of father and son, of coming to understand the widely different orbits each can occupy and not being disappointed when juxtaposing the visions and realities of progenitor and progeny alike. Here is where Rodriguez's writing shines the most, perhaps because it is what he felt he most needed to work out in exercise.
Rodriguez is a great writer and this is an impressive show of writing.
February 5, 2014
Even though I get the points of Richard Rodriguez, this book is beyond my interest. I cannot relate to his essays on Tijuana and other buzz words unless I look them up in Wikepedia as though I read sheer historical information on Mexico’s sovereignty. Besides, I mistook the title of the book for his difficulties in coming out to his father. (The title turns out to be related to the relationship between America and Mexico.) So it took me a few days to finish it since I do not want to get into the habit of putting down a book that I find too sluggish to read.
The reason why I longed to read it then because I was impressed by his notable autobiography, THE HUNGER OF MEMORY since it deals with intellectual development of an average person.
Nevertheless, reading DAYS OF OBLIGATION has proven the fact that Richard Rodriguez, for me, is indeed genius; he has these exceptional skills in writing. I tend to befuddled by the ways he puts his ideas together as well as his perspectives on life as a non-native speaker, an immigrant in America. Also, he is such an independent critic. He even criticized the customs of the Filipino immigrants in America. No doubt he is heralded as one of the best American essayists. If I were a Mexican or World History professor, I would rate it 4 or 5 stars. In fact, I wonder if he could write a novel as impressive as Henry James's. ^^
The reason why I longed to read it then because I was impressed by his notable autobiography, THE HUNGER OF MEMORY since it deals with intellectual development of an average person.
Nevertheless, reading DAYS OF OBLIGATION has proven the fact that Richard Rodriguez, for me, is indeed genius; he has these exceptional skills in writing. I tend to befuddled by the ways he puts his ideas together as well as his perspectives on life as a non-native speaker, an immigrant in America. Also, he is such an independent critic. He even criticized the customs of the Filipino immigrants in America. No doubt he is heralded as one of the best American essayists. If I were a Mexican or World History professor, I would rate it 4 or 5 stars. In fact, I wonder if he could write a novel as impressive as Henry James's. ^^
September 7, 2017
This is bad writing on so many levels.
I'm a half-Mexican reader who is researching his roots, and was given this book as a gift. I'm also a former journalist, so I know what good writing looks like. This doesn't even come close. Starting just with the sentences themselves, he tends to be purposely obscure and oblique, avoiding making points. You read his prose several times before it makes even partial sense, and it's not because the author is some limitless genius, it's because he doesn't know how to write a straight sentence. He doesn't know how to follow a thread. He meanders. He repeats himself. There is no point.
I've taught writing, and this is the kind of writing that you get from sophomores who are intimidated by the writing process, and are scared by this word or that phrase for various bogus reasons. He doesn't even know how to come out of the closet! He never actually says it, although he talks all around it in increasingly boring ways.
Today, I reached page 77 and threw the book across the room. Then I called my cousin, who gave me the book as a gift, and ripped him a new one. He's a libertarian. I guess he likes Rodriguez because he's against affirmative action.
I'm a half-Mexican reader who is researching his roots, and was given this book as a gift. I'm also a former journalist, so I know what good writing looks like. This doesn't even come close. Starting just with the sentences themselves, he tends to be purposely obscure and oblique, avoiding making points. You read his prose several times before it makes even partial sense, and it's not because the author is some limitless genius, it's because he doesn't know how to write a straight sentence. He doesn't know how to follow a thread. He meanders. He repeats himself. There is no point.
I've taught writing, and this is the kind of writing that you get from sophomores who are intimidated by the writing process, and are scared by this word or that phrase for various bogus reasons. He doesn't even know how to come out of the closet! He never actually says it, although he talks all around it in increasingly boring ways.
Today, I reached page 77 and threw the book across the room. Then I called my cousin, who gave me the book as a gift, and ripped him a new one. He's a libertarian. I guess he likes Rodriguez because he's against affirmative action.
December 5, 2013
Beautifully written and controversial, but for me it read as a collection of essays rather than an "argument with my Mexican father." Rodriguez has profound things to say about the experiences of second-generation immigrants from Mexico, but the collection also treats AIDS in '80's San Francisco, the pseudo-history and -romance of the California missions, Asians as minorities, even the educational system. His basic premise is that the "melting pot" destroys identity, that the United States has no core values:
"Mexicans know very little of the United States...Coming from Mexico, a country that is so thorughly there, where things are not necessarily different from when your father was your age, Mexicans are unable to puncture the abstraction. For Mexicans, even death is less abstract than America." (p. 51)
"Mexicans know very little of the United States...Coming from Mexico, a country that is so thorughly there, where things are not necessarily different from when your father was your age, Mexicans are unable to puncture the abstraction. For Mexicans, even death is less abstract than America." (p. 51)
October 27, 2014
Days of Obligation is like no other collection of essays I've come upon. Rodriquez is an incredible stylist, juxtaposing contrasts and opposing viewpoints to fashion thoughts that are at times contradictory but always food for thought. One of my favorite moments is his conclusion that because he lived in a Chinese neighborhood, he was as much Chinese as American. His essays are not linear in the least and contain historical references woven into his personal thoughts. While he is on a continuous search to figure out his hybrid roots, he forms some unique patterns in his writing. All his essays must be read twice.
August 21, 2010
I really liked this book. Richard Rodriguez is a Mexican American and the book covers a lot of different topics about the area around the border between the US and Mexico. Even though this book was written almost 20 years ago, a lot of the topics are still pertinent today.
My favorite chapters are about Tijuana, the Castro district in San Fran and the Missions of Southern California. All these chapters discuss the clash between American and Mexican culture. Definitely a good read for anyone that is interested in Mexican American culture.
My favorite chapters are about Tijuana, the Castro district in San Fran and the Missions of Southern California. All these chapters discuss the clash between American and Mexican culture. Definitely a good read for anyone that is interested in Mexican American culture.
October 15, 2011
The first couple of these essays are something of a slog - some interesting ideas that are made somewhat impenetrable with layers of kind of overblown florid language and metaphor.
"Absence shot through opalescent tugs of semen to deflower the city."
Ummm. Yeah.
Anyway, after the first two or three, the writing got much more settled down and therefore readable. And then it became clear that there was actually some rather interesting things that Rodriguez has to say about America, about being an immigrant, and about culture. Though I did maybe miss the opalescent tugs, just a little.
"Absence shot through opalescent tugs of semen to deflower the city."
Ummm. Yeah.
Anyway, after the first two or three, the writing got much more settled down and therefore readable. And then it became clear that there was actually some rather interesting things that Rodriguez has to say about America, about being an immigrant, and about culture. Though I did maybe miss the opalescent tugs, just a little.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews