Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez (ISBN 0-553-27293-4) is a 1982 autobiography by Chicano intellectual Richard Rodriguez. The book, written as several separate essays, narrates Rodriguez's educational history.
In general, Rodriguez laments that as he furthered his education, eventually finishing a Ph.D. in English Literature, he became increasingly alienated from his family. As his interests grew, his family's generally did not, resulting a diverse gap in shared interests. Having become fluent in the language of the intellectual community, he lost touch with the cultural values that he once held in common with his family. His autobiography also includes an instance where he turned down a potentially lucrative job offer due to the implication that it was extended on the basis of his race and not his scholarship. Between these two experiences, Rodriguez warns about the dual kinds of alienation felt in bilingual studies and higher education.
The autobiography Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez is an overall compelling self told story of a scholarship boy. Richard tells readers about his struggle with how separate his home and school life are. Both of which are completely different in many ways. He tells of his feeling of being more distant from his home life each time that he pushed forward in his schooling. Richard goes on to talk about how his school and home had separate views on religion, ethnicity and skin color, and his now current job.
Richard mentions frequently the fact that he is a Mexican-American. Telling readers on how being one affected many parts of his life. Later in college and even later in life it affected him because his professors and employers labeled him as a minority student or as part of a minority. He talks about how being labeled a minority gave him many more opportunities but how because of this he felt a sort of guilt. Students who had worked just as hard as him but not being minorities weren't offered as many jobs as he was.
The autobiography not only tells about his own life as a middle-class scholarship student but also his views on what others have written about scholarship students. The book gives provocative arguments and profound thought. It tells of his change from a boy trying to become a man and his reflections on the past.