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Brown: The Last Discovery of America
In his dazzling new memoir, Richard Rodriguez reflects on the color brown and the meaning of Hispanics to the life of America today. Rodriguez argues that America has been brown since its inception-since the moment the African and the European met within the Indian eye. But more than simply a book about race, Brown is about America in the broadest sense-a look at what our country is, full of surprising observations by a writer who is a marvelous stylist as well as a trenchant observer and thinker.
232 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2002
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574 people want to read
About the author
Richard Rodríguez
53 books72 followersRichard Rodríguez is an American writer who became famous as the author of Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodríguez (1982). His work has appeared in Harper's, The American Scholar, the Los Ángeles Times Magazine, and The New Republic. Richard's awards include the Frankel Medal from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the International Journalism Award from the World Affairs Council of California. He has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in non-fiction; and the National Book Critics' Award.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 63 reviews
May 28, 2013
Brown, by Richard Rodriguez, addresses many paradoxes (wanting to belong versus wanting to be an individual, extremes vs. mediocrity, etc.), yet the main main theme that resonated with me was the idea that political correctness, the act of tiptoeing around the issue of race, can be much more racist than the blatant fact. Though we have been in our past offensive, banishing native tribes of our nation to tiny reservations plagued with disease and alcohol and drug abuse, and, of course, committed the shameful sin of slavery, we have reached a time where we can recognize other races for what they are: people. And at this time, when we should be accepting of what others want for themselves and ingratiating that into our culture, we have decided to put people in boxes, categorize, and set apart.
Rodriguez makes the case that people do not want to be identified by terms that make them “politically correct.” He writes, “Young negroes with no time to waste, no patience for eternal justice, renamed themselves ‘black’” (17). Though, for some reason, white America feels that it’s job is to make everyone feel equally addressed, minorities have begun to take matters into their own hands, establishing their identities for what they want to be instead of what they are told to be.
When Johnson introduced Affirmative Action as a way to solve the country’s race problem, cultures and people became colors became statistics. Rodriguez writes, “In college, because of Lyndon Johnson, I became a ‘minority student’… a government document of dulling prose would redefine America as an idea in five colors: White. Black. Yellow. Red. Brown” (94).
Furthermore, Americans, real Americans, use this idea to justify the separation we are “trying” to avoid. The author writes, “’We are Americans, too,’ they said. No, you’re not, you are Mexicans. And you are Canadians. We are Americans ©” (119). We feel the need to constantly hyphenate, to keep ourselves pure, and maintain distaste for mixture and the influence of cultures we do not feel to be ours.
I believe that it is a thin line we tread between being crudely offensive and overly protective; an inability to say “black” or “Indian” or even say nothing at all leads to ignorance, a “softness on geography” (117) that leads to our idea of the American identity. But wouldn’t it just be best to leave everyone be?
Rodriguez makes the case that people do not want to be identified by terms that make them “politically correct.” He writes, “Young negroes with no time to waste, no patience for eternal justice, renamed themselves ‘black’” (17). Though, for some reason, white America feels that it’s job is to make everyone feel equally addressed, minorities have begun to take matters into their own hands, establishing their identities for what they want to be instead of what they are told to be.
When Johnson introduced Affirmative Action as a way to solve the country’s race problem, cultures and people became colors became statistics. Rodriguez writes, “In college, because of Lyndon Johnson, I became a ‘minority student’… a government document of dulling prose would redefine America as an idea in five colors: White. Black. Yellow. Red. Brown” (94).
Furthermore, Americans, real Americans, use this idea to justify the separation we are “trying” to avoid. The author writes, “’We are Americans, too,’ they said. No, you’re not, you are Mexicans. And you are Canadians. We are Americans ©” (119). We feel the need to constantly hyphenate, to keep ourselves pure, and maintain distaste for mixture and the influence of cultures we do not feel to be ours.
I believe that it is a thin line we tread between being crudely offensive and overly protective; an inability to say “black” or “Indian” or even say nothing at all leads to ignorance, a “softness on geography” (117) that leads to our idea of the American identity. But wouldn’t it just be best to leave everyone be?
June 12, 2012
Before venturing down the convoluted and intricately flowing river of mind of Mr. Rodriguez, my English teacher gave the class a single word to describe the thin, shadowy memoir on our desks. She told the class to remember the word "Iconoclast", and with an air of certainty wrote its definition on the white board, embracing the terms fully negative connotation in an ironic proclamation of what the book represents. That definition was the first thing I wrote on the subject of this book, and it still lies within the cover of Brown as if to always remind myself of the idealism of culture, literature, and human progression as a whole.
Its hard to even begin in describing the journey this book took me on during the progression of the semester. Those who know me hold the perception that I am a true-blue 100% American, which is a similar attitude I like to hold from my own frame of reference. This memoir challenged what it was and meant to even be an American, culturally ethnically, and psychologically. Brown, from Rodriguez's perspective, was the culmination of American ideals into a completely new country. Evolving, changing, adapting, corrupting the "white" untainted sphere of thinking. Flying from topic to topic, the reader has to wade through cultural references which seem to drip from each sentence and paragraph. The ideas and perceptions that I absorbed from this text will last much longer than its beginnings in English class, it redefined how I perceive myself as an American citizen.
Its hard to even begin in describing the journey this book took me on during the progression of the semester. Those who know me hold the perception that I am a true-blue 100% American, which is a similar attitude I like to hold from my own frame of reference. This memoir challenged what it was and meant to even be an American, culturally ethnically, and psychologically. Brown, from Rodriguez's perspective, was the culmination of American ideals into a completely new country. Evolving, changing, adapting, corrupting the "white" untainted sphere of thinking. Flying from topic to topic, the reader has to wade through cultural references which seem to drip from each sentence and paragraph. The ideas and perceptions that I absorbed from this text will last much longer than its beginnings in English class, it redefined how I perceive myself as an American citizen.
April 11, 2010
It's somewhat surprising to me that I actually own all three volumes of Richard Rodriguez's essays/memoirs/rants, because when I think about it the guy gets on my last nerve. He's Latino, born in San Francisco of Mexican parents, but grew up in Sacramento. He's also Catholic and gay. Which apparently allows him to claim the trifecta of identity politics, that rare triple minority status.
To give him credit, Rodriguez gained a certain notoriety as a young academic for his principled refusal to take advantage of the benefits that affirmative action policies offered him. Unfortunately, he does not seem to have been able to avoid the trap of allowing himself to be defined by his ethnicity, and to a lesser extent, his homosexuality.
Disappointingly, Rodriguez's writing career consists almost exclusively of endless public rumination about the status of gays, Catholics, and Latinos in general, and his own life in particular. Though he can write a mean essay when he exercises a little self-discipline, far too often he descends into a kind of maudlin, whining, self-pity. One wonders how he survived adolescence at all, given the enormous size of the chip on his shoulder. Life is so unfair, and why couldn't he have been born as a popular straight white jock?
Well, excuse me, but donnez-moi un break!. There are plenty of worse places than Sacramento to grow up, and he wasn't exactly raised in poverty. At what point did he decide that the alienation of the immigrant experience was going to be his lifelong shtick? At age 3? 6? 12?
To date he has published three books, each of a more or less autobiographical nature, at roughly ten-year intervals (1982, 1992, 2002). Each contains some biographical sketches and copious ruminations on the status of minorities in the U.S. Of the three, the first is by far the best, and probably the only one worth reading - it's crisply written and avoids the deficiencies of the later books. I would characterize the main defects of the later books as
(a) meandering, undisciplined navel-gazing and tail-chasing, worrying the whole ethnic identity question to death with ever-diminishing returns
(b) a tone that is predominantly whinily self-pitying
(c) a creeping pomposity of tone
prompting my reaction
(a) you could just get over it already
(b) oh, for christ's sake, try counting your blessings, which are multiple
(c) if you want to write about the widespread use of cell phones in Finland, don't write "Everyone in the flaxen-haired capital of despair is on the phone, one hears". For that matter, I'm sure the Finns might object to the glib "Finland, a nation famous for sardines and suicide and short winter days.."
Rodriguez didn't always write like a pathetic hack. But somehow he still walks around with that monumental stick up his ass and a pronounced sense of "otherness". Much to the detriment of his later writing.
If he keeps to his schedule, we can expect the next volume of essays in 2012. Though you may hope that the Mayans have got it right and that we will all be spared a fourth volume.
To give him credit, Rodriguez gained a certain notoriety as a young academic for his principled refusal to take advantage of the benefits that affirmative action policies offered him. Unfortunately, he does not seem to have been able to avoid the trap of allowing himself to be defined by his ethnicity, and to a lesser extent, his homosexuality.
Disappointingly, Rodriguez's writing career consists almost exclusively of endless public rumination about the status of gays, Catholics, and Latinos in general, and his own life in particular. Though he can write a mean essay when he exercises a little self-discipline, far too often he descends into a kind of maudlin, whining, self-pity. One wonders how he survived adolescence at all, given the enormous size of the chip on his shoulder. Life is so unfair, and why couldn't he have been born as a popular straight white jock?
Well, excuse me, but donnez-moi un break!. There are plenty of worse places than Sacramento to grow up, and he wasn't exactly raised in poverty. At what point did he decide that the alienation of the immigrant experience was going to be his lifelong shtick? At age 3? 6? 12?
To date he has published three books, each of a more or less autobiographical nature, at roughly ten-year intervals (1982, 1992, 2002). Each contains some biographical sketches and copious ruminations on the status of minorities in the U.S. Of the three, the first is by far the best, and probably the only one worth reading - it's crisply written and avoids the deficiencies of the later books. I would characterize the main defects of the later books as
(a) meandering, undisciplined navel-gazing and tail-chasing, worrying the whole ethnic identity question to death with ever-diminishing returns
(b) a tone that is predominantly whinily self-pitying
(c) a creeping pomposity of tone
prompting my reaction
(a) you could just get over it already
(b) oh, for christ's sake, try counting your blessings, which are multiple
(c) if you want to write about the widespread use of cell phones in Finland, don't write "Everyone in the flaxen-haired capital of despair is on the phone, one hears". For that matter, I'm sure the Finns might object to the glib "Finland, a nation famous for sardines and suicide and short winter days.."
Rodriguez didn't always write like a pathetic hack. But somehow he still walks around with that monumental stick up his ass and a pronounced sense of "otherness". Much to the detriment of his later writing.
If he keeps to his schedule, we can expect the next volume of essays in 2012. Though you may hope that the Mayans have got it right and that we will all be spared a fourth volume.
March 17, 2014
Recommended but with the caveat that it's not really a book about 'race' and it's not always an easy read. Rodriguez is a free agent, neither loyal nor beholden to ANY orthodoxy -- racial, religious, sexual, or otherwise. He does tend to wander off on lyrical but sometimes tedious (to me) tangents, which detracted a bit for me from the power of his writing, which is considerable. Rodriguez definitely makes a case to rival Joan Didion as Best Sacramento Essayist (a coveted distinction, let me tell you). I give it three stars for now but I have a feeling this book will stay with me. -mb
January 28, 2020
I am likely not the first person to pick up this book only to find themselves surprised that it is an argument against identity politics. I disagree with much of it, and object more viscerally to a small number of other passages. But, I think his is an important, interesting perspective informed by scholarship and lived experience, and it made me think critically about my own beliefs.
January 3, 2012
My pity for Rodriguez continues.
Brown is a meditation on the color of liminality in the black/white dynamic of American self-conception. At times, Rodriguez seems willing to tarry there in the in-between, in the almost-but-not-quite, but then he moves self-consciously away into that zone beyond doubt, seemingly aware of the dangers of certainty, but preferring it cold comfort.
As he does in Hunger of Memory, Rodriguez seems to want to embrace his occasional white-privilege allowed him by his social position as an academic and a writer as something he has unmitigated and uninterrupted access to. It seems to me to be the way he deals with his guilt that he has it at all as compared to those who by dint of color and/or other social disadvantage have less frequent access to it, or no access at all.
For example, he makes the point to mock a young woman he calls a "white Latina" for referring to herself as a person of color, as if "color" were only complexion. His attitude on these issues actually seems inconsistent and frustrating, because he also talks of "colored" thoughts and "colored" language - he includes a long discussion with a black/brown friend on the socially constructed nature of race and estimations of color that are founded on positional power dynamics - but then continues to display shame any benefit he may have gained from affirmative action. It is never clear to me why he feels so undeserving. It is never clear to me why he never uses his rich evocative (also overwritten and florid) language to reflect on situations where the brownness of his skin and his name have been obstacles to the everyday exercise of the privilege he claims to have. Could it be that he has never had that experience? I doubt it. I would be more willing to believe that he simply myopic, always interpreting such experiences through his unassuaged guilt. And yet, he seems too self aware and intelligent for that. I don't know.
Rodriguez's meditations do come upon some interesting questions. For example, how the progressive assertion of racial representation actually lead to increased forms of segregation, bemoaning the fact that his books are found among "Latino" writers regardless of form or content and not among the writers of the western canon he so admires. He snickers at the fact that a newspaper chooses a gay Columbian writer of magical realist fiction to review his work, when nothing but broad conceptions of "latino" and "gay" gives them anything in common.
At the same time, he seems to be suggesting that acting as if race does not exist (as it certainly does not as a scientific category) would undo the experience of race in America.
Ultimately, I grew tired of Rodriguez's writing style and his psychological limitations, but that doesn't mean I walked away from the book without any ideas to chew on, but I am more likely to spit them back out than swallow them.
Brown is a meditation on the color of liminality in the black/white dynamic of American self-conception. At times, Rodriguez seems willing to tarry there in the in-between, in the almost-but-not-quite, but then he moves self-consciously away into that zone beyond doubt, seemingly aware of the dangers of certainty, but preferring it cold comfort.
As he does in Hunger of Memory, Rodriguez seems to want to embrace his occasional white-privilege allowed him by his social position as an academic and a writer as something he has unmitigated and uninterrupted access to. It seems to me to be the way he deals with his guilt that he has it at all as compared to those who by dint of color and/or other social disadvantage have less frequent access to it, or no access at all.
For example, he makes the point to mock a young woman he calls a "white Latina" for referring to herself as a person of color, as if "color" were only complexion. His attitude on these issues actually seems inconsistent and frustrating, because he also talks of "colored" thoughts and "colored" language - he includes a long discussion with a black/brown friend on the socially constructed nature of race and estimations of color that are founded on positional power dynamics - but then continues to display shame any benefit he may have gained from affirmative action. It is never clear to me why he feels so undeserving. It is never clear to me why he never uses his rich evocative (also overwritten and florid) language to reflect on situations where the brownness of his skin and his name have been obstacles to the everyday exercise of the privilege he claims to have. Could it be that he has never had that experience? I doubt it. I would be more willing to believe that he simply myopic, always interpreting such experiences through his unassuaged guilt. And yet, he seems too self aware and intelligent for that. I don't know.
Rodriguez's meditations do come upon some interesting questions. For example, how the progressive assertion of racial representation actually lead to increased forms of segregation, bemoaning the fact that his books are found among "Latino" writers regardless of form or content and not among the writers of the western canon he so admires. He snickers at the fact that a newspaper chooses a gay Columbian writer of magical realist fiction to review his work, when nothing but broad conceptions of "latino" and "gay" gives them anything in common.
At the same time, he seems to be suggesting that acting as if race does not exist (as it certainly does not as a scientific category) would undo the experience of race in America.
Ultimately, I grew tired of Rodriguez's writing style and his psychological limitations, but that doesn't mean I walked away from the book without any ideas to chew on, but I am more likely to spit them back out than swallow them.
February 2, 2009
It is different. I may not entirely "get it", but his book seems equal parts observation, wonder, and personal revelation or how he has evolved since “Days of Obligation”. A couple of analogies seem to overreach, but most hit the mark. Much is said about the individual such as how “I” relates to “we”. Like him, I was born and raised in California (he in Sacramento and me in a suburb of Los Angeles) and had not traveled very far from home until my early twenties.
His commentary often comes at the reader in short quick creatively, almost randomly, connected sentences like a machine gun. Since you cannot keep track of each individual bullet the reader must pause to consider the overall impact. Brown may be in the title, but I think the book has more to say. It was comforting to me that his thoughts on "east and west" were not unlike my own.
To borrow from his Brown idea, I always thought of California as Brown when growing up because of southern California's affinity with Mexico and its Spanish history. Our local landmarks of note most often possessed Spanish names such as San Gabriel, Alhambra, Pico Blvd, San Diego, Los Angeles, and so forth. The "El Camino Real" or "The Kings Highway" ran through the center of the town where I grew up. Our local historical figures were Spanish surnamed. At the time, California's traditions and culture faced south. Thus there was little or no connection, at least in my mind, to the east.
His commentary often comes at the reader in short quick creatively, almost randomly, connected sentences like a machine gun. Since you cannot keep track of each individual bullet the reader must pause to consider the overall impact. Brown may be in the title, but I think the book has more to say. It was comforting to me that his thoughts on "east and west" were not unlike my own.
To borrow from his Brown idea, I always thought of California as Brown when growing up because of southern California's affinity with Mexico and its Spanish history. Our local landmarks of note most often possessed Spanish names such as San Gabriel, Alhambra, Pico Blvd, San Diego, Los Angeles, and so forth. The "El Camino Real" or "The Kings Highway" ran through the center of the town where I grew up. Our local historical figures were Spanish surnamed. At the time, California's traditions and culture faced south. Thus there was little or no connection, at least in my mind, to the east.
Read
October 28, 2018Richard Rodriguez is a national treasure (he would say, in a parenthetical note like this, that he is a world treasure, or perhaps treasure of the world, a treasured parchment in a brown chest). What I admire most about him is his bravery. Not the braveness of his politics (he's a member of the "it's complicated" party) , but the bravery of his writing, which is written just so, every word a triumph, every sentence a five-course meal. If Richard Rodriguez wants to write a 50 page essay (a 50 page essay! it won't sell - no one will read it!) about an avocado (but really about everything - you know, America, the Bible, San Francisco, gays, race, Native American history, veganism, shit) Richard Rodriguez will write it, and you will find yourself trusting him, even when you are lost. I would trust Richard Rodriguez to lead me blindfolded across a desert. At one point in this book he writes of his editor telling him not to write a particular sentence a particular way, and so he reiterates what he wrote, and writes even more about why he wrote it. In other words, Richard Rodriguez is a writer's writer. What he earns, in his word-by-word style (his pausing every time he needs to think style - you'll wait), is a voice unlike any other. A voice that is instantly recognizable as his own.
December 30, 2010
This is for a book club that I want to join at my local library. I saw him speak on the theme of this book about four years ago. In his talk he really focused on "browning" as the romance of interracial relationships. There are many forms of browning discussed in the book (Rodriguez seems to have a love/hate relationship with writing about race), which has beautiful language, though sometimes the metaphors are a little too abstract. I think that's one of the biggest criticisms of him; that he's an abstract writer. But the abstraction is only sometimes annoying and often adds layers of meaning, like in poetry. There's an overall theme of love in this book that pervades it all.
January 17, 2012
Although I personally don't agree with Rodriguez's politics (really? how can you be a conservative Mexican American who doesn't believe in affirmative action even after benefiting hugely from it??) and don't even love his writing style (too digressive, stream-of-consciousness), his ideas and musings are really interesting and every time I read and teach this book, there is more to plumb.
To talk and teach about race, ethnicity and the weird place that it occupies in America, you need this book.
To talk and teach about race, ethnicity and the weird place that it occupies in America, you need this book.
August 6, 2013
I had high expectations for this book. The description made it sound captivating. That being said, only one chapter was how I expected the entire book to be. There was little to no organization to the text. The author seemed to want to impress the reader with references that were probably lost on even well read audiences. While very interested in the concept and notion of brown I found this book boring and would not recommend it.
Read
December 9, 2021It's been a while since I've read a collection of essays and, extremely hampered by a cold, I feel like there were a lot of connections I missed. So, since experience dictates that I'm not the best person for a complete review when my oxygen intake is limited, I won't leave one. I also have no memory of how this got on my list.
I did think that the contrast my mind made between Nixon and DT was interesting(book published just post 2001 so he couldn't make that contrast yet). Some of his statements meshed really well with Amy Chua's book Tribes. We(white, multigenerational US citizens) really do have a peculiar worldview that's passed down(however it is).
My other thoughts are probably too dependent on my faulty, cold-riddled brain to put here.
Not rated because it seems like a biography?
A couple of swears did appear near the end.
I did think that the contrast my mind made between Nixon and DT was interesting(book published just post 2001 so he couldn't make that contrast yet). Some of his statements meshed really well with Amy Chua's book Tribes. We(white, multigenerational US citizens) really do have a peculiar worldview that's passed down(however it is).
My other thoughts are probably too dependent on my faulty, cold-riddled brain to put here.
Not rated because it seems like a biography?
A couple of swears did appear near the end.
March 6, 2017
In "Brown," Richard Rodriguez writes, he says, not of race, but of impurity. In so doing, he identifies himself as impure and then all of us as himself; he sings, as Whitman, for everyone, and especially for those, who, like Rodriguez, has not been allowed to sing for himself alone. We are all brown, Richard argues. Too, we are all puritans. The argumentation in this book takes the braided form to its limits, illustrating the "only subject" (what it feels like to be alive) in terms of the cognitive dissonance that we might ignore ("White is an impulse to remain innocent of history.") but cannot separate from. The prose is pointed and beautiful. I'm sorry it took me so long to find this writer.
November 19, 2018
This book goes on my short list of best books I have ever read. Richard Rodriguez writes from a place of deep perception and self-awareness, and his prose is so well crafted that at times it feels like poetry. I had expected something polemic, an angrier tone, but did not find that. There is truth in his writing that is more than Richard Rodriguez' truth, or the truth of brown people, but simply human truth. There were paragraphs that in themselves could provide material for a day of reflection and contemplation.
October 14, 2022
Rodriguez likes to bait you and push you to really think about some of our blindly accepted concepts in this book in addition to giving a very engaging/enlightening perspective of the Hispanic/Latino experience of America.
August 13, 2018
the anti-blackness, internalized oppression, and horizontal hostility jumped out
June 12, 2020
I have not read this writer before so I was delighted by his poetic and thoughtful language. Now more than ever this is a great and hopeful book.
Read
February 7, 2024richard rodriguez was asked to pick a struggle and he said no
October 23, 2025
Cue the flashbacks to high school literature class.
June 16, 2020
A collection of random thoughts on race that is rife with pretension.
July 8, 2020
Oy, one I've wanted to read for such a long time, but not one that deserves to be read in the subway. These essays are beautifully written and masterfully structured, but they are not straight-forward. They require time, thought, and close reading--and, if only, discussion. It's probably a bit telling that it took me about twice as long to finish this slim, large-printed volume than it did for me to read my next two books, each of which was half again as long and with smaller type.
Gave me quite a bit of food for thought. One morsel that stuck out, professionally, was Rodriguez's dislike of being called a "Hispanic" writer--not only because of the odd origins and apparently exceptional unreality of "Hispanic" as a group, but because it then segregates books written by Latinx writers from other writers. As someone on the BISAC subject codes committee, I found this interesting. I wonder if the "Hispanic & Latino" subject heading has been applied to books not because they are about Hispanic/Latino/Latina/Latinx people but because they are by authors who others say fit those categories. (It is notoriously hard to get people to remember that subject categories are for what the book is about, not what the author is or what you want it to be. Sigh.) As Rodriguez points out, India's most famous author (Salman Rushdie) is a British citizen who has lived in the US and Canada for much of his life.
Anyway, just about every third page of my book is dog eared, so no quote roundup this time--there's no way I could narrow that down.
[Not sure of exact read dates. I'm too far behind...]
Gave me quite a bit of food for thought. One morsel that stuck out, professionally, was Rodriguez's dislike of being called a "Hispanic" writer--not only because of the odd origins and apparently exceptional unreality of "Hispanic" as a group, but because it then segregates books written by Latinx writers from other writers. As someone on the BISAC subject codes committee, I found this interesting. I wonder if the "Hispanic & Latino" subject heading has been applied to books not because they are about Hispanic/Latino/Latina/Latinx people but because they are by authors who others say fit those categories. (It is notoriously hard to get people to remember that subject categories are for what the book is about, not what the author is or what you want it to be. Sigh.) As Rodriguez points out, India's most famous author (Salman Rushdie) is a British citizen who has lived in the US and Canada for much of his life.
Anyway, just about every third page of my book is dog eared, so no quote roundup this time--there's no way I could narrow that down.
[Not sure of exact read dates. I'm too far behind...]
January 20, 2014
Great. Thought-provoking.
Richard Rodriguez is a San Francisco-based writer who was asked to write a book about being Hispanic in America. I doubt Brown: The Last Discovery of America was the book that the publisher had in mind when they asked. Rodriguez is a true political maverick whose thesis is that America is becoming "Brown" - a mixture of Anglo, Hispanic, Black, Asian and whatever else you want to throw in. America can embrace this future (and probably will) or it can reject it and deny the reality that surrounds us all (and does it matter if you deny reality - it is still there).
I first heard of Rodriguez on C-Span. He was giving a speech at the Texas Book Fair created by Laura Bush. His speech was truly wonderful and I just had to find his book. I could go into detail on his observations, but you would much prefer if you would read it the way he put them in his book - his writing style is so fluid that he sneaks major concepts into your thoughts before you even realize that they are there.
I seriously enjoyed this book - at the risk of sounding like the back of a book cover - here are some thoughts that crossed my mind while reading it - important, poignant, personal and filled with insights.
Read all of my reviews (more than one thousand!) at: http://dwdsreviews.blogspot.com/
Richard Rodriguez is a San Francisco-based writer who was asked to write a book about being Hispanic in America. I doubt Brown: The Last Discovery of America was the book that the publisher had in mind when they asked. Rodriguez is a true political maverick whose thesis is that America is becoming "Brown" - a mixture of Anglo, Hispanic, Black, Asian and whatever else you want to throw in. America can embrace this future (and probably will) or it can reject it and deny the reality that surrounds us all (and does it matter if you deny reality - it is still there).
I first heard of Rodriguez on C-Span. He was giving a speech at the Texas Book Fair created by Laura Bush. His speech was truly wonderful and I just had to find his book. I could go into detail on his observations, but you would much prefer if you would read it the way he put them in his book - his writing style is so fluid that he sneaks major concepts into your thoughts before you even realize that they are there.
I seriously enjoyed this book - at the risk of sounding like the back of a book cover - here are some thoughts that crossed my mind while reading it - important, poignant, personal and filled with insights.
Read all of my reviews (more than one thousand!) at: http://dwdsreviews.blogspot.com/
July 6, 2011
I wanted to like this more but honestly this felt a bit half-hearted, or half-baked. Perhaps I held unreasonable expectations, the book jacket did say (warn?) that 'to describe Brown as a book about race is misleading: It is really a book about America in the broadest sense...' after all.
Rodriguez' writing is beautiful, elegant, sharp, poetic. He's brave and has a dark sense of humour. He proposes intriguing and unexpected connections, admirable even if I often found myself disagreeing with him. It's not the ranty quality of this book that bothers me but rather that it seems to go everywhere and therefore ultimately nowhere. I think I would have preferred this if it had been presented as some sort of prose poem.
This is worth reading, and it's a quick read, but don't bring any expectations.
I am looking forward to reading Days of Obligation.
Rodriguez' writing is beautiful, elegant, sharp, poetic. He's brave and has a dark sense of humour. He proposes intriguing and unexpected connections, admirable even if I often found myself disagreeing with him. It's not the ranty quality of this book that bothers me but rather that it seems to go everywhere and therefore ultimately nowhere. I think I would have preferred this if it had been presented as some sort of prose poem.
This is worth reading, and it's a quick read, but don't bring any expectations.
I am looking forward to reading Days of Obligation.
September 10, 2008
The writing is beautiful, there is some highly quotable material, and much of his commentary is startling and thought provoking. That being said, at 230 pages, this book is too long. There is not even the semblance of a plot, and only a hint of organization. The cover quotes the Los Angeles Times review that calls it "a meditation on America's family secrets," and I think the term "meditation" is particularly apt. There is no focus, just random, disjointed reflections on things pertaining to his self. Some of the reflections are interesting, some are misguided, based on false assumptions and trying too hard to surprise the reader. Either way, the book as a whole is not worth reading, although if a selection of passages from the book existed, I would absolutely recommend it.
February 6, 2015
I love some of Richard Rodriguez' essays, but this fell flat in a lot of ways. He has some beautiful lines and beautiful concepts and I was really excited at a few moments. But there was a lot of filler in between. It read like a series of talks more than anything else, like something made for the ~digital age~ instead of a book of trying to struggle with concepts. So, not really my scene, even with some incredible thoughts in there.
It could be a great book for the right person. I just don't think I'm the write person at the moment. The concept of brown as mixture, brown as dirtiness, and brown skin as complication was one that I very much got and wanted to explore, but this didn't really do that in a way I was able to get.
It could be a great book for the right person. I just don't think I'm the write person at the moment. The concept of brown as mixture, brown as dirtiness, and brown skin as complication was one that I very much got and wanted to explore, but this didn't really do that in a way I was able to get.
July 29, 2013
This particular book took me a while to get into, but after page 48 I finished it in one day.
More about Brown as the concept of impurity(not always as race), but embracing of that impurity and its connection with ambiguity and middle grounds, rather than talking about impurity with a negative connotation. Also a discussion of American Identity(I particularly enjoyed his section dealing with authenticity versus theatricality and Puritan roots).
It is more of a meditation than a journey, which is probably why it took a while to grab me. You have to approach the reading in a different way, slowly. But he ends with Walt Whitman, so who am I to complain? :)
More about Brown as the concept of impurity(not always as race), but embracing of that impurity and its connection with ambiguity and middle grounds, rather than talking about impurity with a negative connotation. Also a discussion of American Identity(I particularly enjoyed his section dealing with authenticity versus theatricality and Puritan roots).
It is more of a meditation than a journey, which is probably why it took a while to grab me. You have to approach the reading in a different way, slowly. But he ends with Walt Whitman, so who am I to complain? :)
August 2, 2015
Incredibly written and utterly spellbinding. I found myself nodding along and understanding many of the things he said, the experienced he shared while being brown in America. I will say that near the end he begins to meander and lose the way a bit, talking about the old West and religion, but that being said, I read this as research for my senior thesis and the last 80 pages or so just weren't what I was looking for. That doesn't mean they were bad, however. It is a memoir and I liked the way we're lead through his life while also being pointed out what was going on in the world then, and what's going on now. Loved it.
October 29, 2008
Brown by Richard Rodriguez. I really love his other two books, Days of Obligation, and Hunger for Memory, and the preface to this one, the third in the trilogy, is amazing. Unfortunately, after that its a bit obtuse, as if he's not really concerned whether I know what he's talking about or not, or why, which I think is accurate. Interestingly, I believe its a signed copy from a reading I went to of his. Maybe it would be better if he were reading it to me now. I'll look him up. Final note: I'm generally a fast reader and this took me months to get through, despite being quite thin.
July 18, 2012
I was introduced to Rodriguez years ago, when I read an excerpt from “Aria,” his forceful essay on a bilingual childhood. Brown is that voice to the nth power – poetic, polemic … and pretty darn difficult to teach. But he and I have turned out to have so much in common in our relationship with English and America that this memoir continues to strike a chord with me. I still discover new meaning in it every year, so it’s worth my own time to keep returning to it. Happily, one or two of my students have found the effort worth their time too.
November 29, 2014
Simply the best book by Richard R. Again, more of a meditation on identity and impurity than any type of biography. This collection of essays looks at the the idea of mestizaje as it pertains not just to race and identity but also of ideas, cultures and religion. Through a variety of literary and cultural references we are invited to the continuously evolving mind of one of the most controversial figures in literature today. He is the post-identity American, really much more interested in larger values than the color of his skin.
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