Mexican Immigrant Richard Rodriguez Analysis

Martin Luther King Jr. once said “Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. A mans should do his job so well that the living, the dead , and the unborn could do it no better.” Mexican Immigrant, Richard Rodriguez expresses the hardships of being a dark-skinned boy in American society and how he surpasses all expectations that even he did not believe in. Richard Rodriguez was never a man to stay inside the lines Rodriguez has challenged the stereotypical beliefs that society has granted onto the millions of Mexican immigrants in America, even with the obstacles that a darker skin complexion has brought upon him. The lazy Mexican non-English speaking illegals or whatever American society portrays them to be. All of these ideas that are brought …show more content…
Richard Rodriguez was a child with many faces but one complexion, the dark ethnic complexion that gave him the will to do what he was expected to. The constant reminder, the reflection he saw in the mirror was the obstacle to surpass but by far the hardest one. Yes, he knew English but he couldn't face the fact that in public he would always be a “beaner” if you will, un “Negrito…Mexicano” (121). (Now using the word beaner is not okay or should be used in context at all, but the reality if things in society sometimes calls for it.) His mother even evaluated the color of their skin which to her was a “symbol of Poverty and oppressive labor”(127) which affected Rodriguez, as he was vastly different than the rest of his family because of the dark “terra-cotta” skin complexion. Rodriguez makes a remark about being “born dark” and how Mexicans “grew up to have their faces treated regularly with a mixture of egg whites and lemon juice”(124). This is a natural skin bleaching remedy that is used normally for scarring but it shows how Mexicans are conforming to American …show more content…
There was never a true and genuine acceptance between races and that is just how things are. There is a sense of supremacy between skin color. This affected Richard and the whole pigmented community as a whole. There was a set standard (a very low one that usually ended up with a tool belt under a car) that made a community conform and shape themselves instead of having the ability to break the mirrored chain full of disappointment. it wasn't only the Mexicans who were suffering, the black community also had a strong correlation to racial slurs and conventional values. Rodriguez began to study the “progress of the southern black civil rights movement” which sparked a voice in Richard that he desperately needed. The mistreatment of darker skinned individuals was important in developing more or an understanding of the limited power that Mexican immigrants had. Low pay, Long hours, and construction. The commonly known stereotypes that still are believed today marked a brown brick road for those who were “cursed” with extra pigmentation”. The common misconceptions American society views on Mexican immigrants like Richard Rodriguez’s story in his autobiography Hunger of Memory have been

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