SOURCE: Márquez, Antonio C. “Richard Rodriguez's Hunger of Memory and New Perspectives on Ethnic Autobiography.” In Teaching American Ethnic Literatures: Nineteen Essays, edited by John R. Matino and David R. Peck, pp. 237–54. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996.

In the following essay, Márquez debates the problems of classifying Rodriguez's memoirs as “ethnic-autobiographies.”

A. Analysis of Themes and Form

Hunger of Memory is comprised of a brief prologue, suggestively titled “Middle-Class Pastoral,” and six chapters: (1) “Aria,” (2) “The Achievement of Desire,” (3) “Credo,” (4) “Complexion,” (5) “Profession,” (6) “Mr. Secrets.” The book's subtitle explicitly announces its subject matter and the six chapters are variations on a theme. The six parts form the orchestration of Rodriguez's life; or as he describes the book, “Essays impersonating an autobiography; six chapters of sad, fuguelike repetition” (7). Rodriguez's autobiography (he mocks the term “ethnic autobiography”) is about his education: “I wrote this autobiography as the history of...