This is a book some will love and others will hate.
I first read this book for a college course and found Mr. Rodriguez a bit of a complainer. I just finished re-reading and discovered I greatly enjoyed his writing style and was better able to understand his experience growing up Mexican-American in California. I am still a bit ambivilant It is, at times, a riviting personal narrative. about the interaction between language, culture and assimilation. Mr. Rodriguez poignantly communicates his sadness about his inability speak his native language with his dying grandmother or his parents. He takes a stand on issues of education that may go against what is expected of a Mexican-American, nor is he apologetic on his stand. In his later book of essays, wirtten almost a decade later, "Days of Obligation" his view of total assimilation is somewhat broken.