Summary Of Real Woman Have Curves By Richard Rodriguez

Facing challenges

The desire of obtaining a college education could lead a person into making a significant decision, which could optimally transform the relationship they have with their family members. As demonstrated in Hunger of Memory by Richard Rodriguez, and in the play Real Woman Have Curves by Josefina Lopez. Both Rodriguez and Lopez are faced with an important decision when they decide to further their education. Coming from a similar family background, both Rodriguez and Lopez’s parents did not have the opportunity of obtaining a college education. Rodriguez and Lopez both desire to pursue their goals and live a better life, district from the one there parents live. The eagerness for success, and a better lifestyle draws both

Born in San Francisco and raised in Sacramento by immigrant Spanish speaking parents Richard Rodriguez, obtained a catholic education in primary and secondary schools. As a young child Rodriguez struggled adapting to an English speaking environment at his catholic school. His parents had to learn English in order to help him practice the language at home. On the other hand, Josefina Lopez’s parents were not undocumented but she was. Lopez was raised in Boyle Heights with her seven siblings. She was always encouraged to live the typical life of a Mexican woman, which involved being uneducated, inferior to the men of the household, and to get married and have children. Lopez’s views of the typical Hispanic woman were not something she looked forward to. Instead she wanted to obtain a college degree and become an independent woman. Lopez’s parents did not support her with her idea of going to college, they did not think they could afford a college education for her. In Rodriguez’s case, he decided that if he wanted to become college educated, he had to separate himself from his family, and his Spanish speaking heritage. Aside from Lopez’s parents not being able to afford a college education for her, her mother did not think a college education was necessary. Lopez’s mother did not have a college education herself therefore she though that

The first space he mentions is the space he holds at home with his family’s heritage as a disadvantage boy, and the second space is his end point as a scholarly middle-class man. Rodriguez states, “What he grasps very well is that the scholarship boy must move between environments, his home and the classroom which are at cultural extremes, opposed”(pg. 48) When describing his two separate spaces, Rodriguez emphasizes the two language worlds involved throughout his life. Rodriguez describes the process of moving from one language space to the next as a scholarship boy; as a disadvantage boy he mentions how he spook mostly Spanish and as he became a middle class man he seemed to lose more and more of his Chicano heritage. During the process of becoming a middle class man Rodriguez mentions how he experiences shame, guilt, and loneliness, he becomes very obsessive over his education and at times misses being with his family. He mentions “The scholarship boy needs to spend more and more time studying; each night enclosing himself in the silence permitted and required by intense concentration. He takes his first step toward academic success, away from his family.”(pg. 51) By putting all his focus in studying and concentrating on his education Rodriguez tries to forget how it felt living at home with his parents. Rodriguez refers to the scholarship boy