Summery:

In the book Hunger Of Memory, through pages 1-41, the author potraits his life as the spanish guy who moves to USA, where he enters a new classroom, able to understand some 50 stray English words. all his classmates were white, children of lawyers and doctors. Him and his family lived in a neighborhood far from the Mexican south side of the town. He didnt speek English because the only language spoken at home was Spanish. At the age of six he knew enough English for his mom to let him go to the corner store by himself. He addresses the Americans as los gringos and felt like every day he was being judged by them for being a foreigner. In school he felt like he didn't belong there. When the nuns would tell him to speak up so the whole class could hear him, he felt like the English language wasn't his to use. At the school the nuns noticed him being quite and his sister's and brother's difficult progress. The nuns went to his house to speak with the mother and the father to express their concernes. They suggested that the parents should incouraged the kids to speak English at home. From that moment, his parents started to speak English to the kids and so did his brother and sister. This new language spoken at home was making Richard feel unwelcomed and distant from his culure. "The spell was borken"( Rodriguez, 21). At his house, by the age of seven it felt like the more the children spoke English, they shared fewer and fewer words with their parents. The house was becoming quiter every day. He felt unconfortable with calling his parents mama and papa  because those words would remind him of how his life had changed.

Quote:

"i'd hear voices behind the screen door talking in Spanish. For a second or two, I'd stay, linger there, listening. Smiling, I'd hear my mother call out in Spanish (words): 'Is that you Richard?' All the while her sounds would assume me : you are home now; come closer ; inside. With us." ( Rodriguz, 16)

I like this quote because it expresses the worm and inviting feeling of home, that Richard got hearing his mother speak to him in Spanish in a foreign country where most of the people spoke English. A language unknown for him.

Reaction:

I really like this book because I can relate to it. I almost felt the same way as Richard did when i moved here. Is that strange feeling that Richard got from the people who spoke a different language from what he spoke, that i can mostly relate to. Not only me, but all the other people that have moved from another country, and speak another language other than English can clearly understand what Richard was going through. He felt like he didn't belong with "los gringos" as his family called the Americans. He felt different at home, where he felt like he was always welcomed and able to express his feelings.