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Chicana & Chicano Visions of the Américas
House Built on Ashes: A Memoir (Chicana and Chicano Visions of the Américas Series Book 20)
The year is 2009, and José Antonio Rodríguez, a doctoral student at Binghamton University in upstate New York, is packing his suitcase, getting ready to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with his parents in South Texas. He soon learns from his father that a drug cartel has overtaken the Mexican border village where he was born. Now, because of the violence there, he won’t be able to visit his early-childhood home. Instead, his memories will have to take him back.
Thus, Rodríguez begins a meditative journey into the past. Through a series of vignettes, he mines the details of a childhood and adolescence fraught with deprivation but offset by moments of tenderness and beauty. Suddenly he is four years old again, and his mother is feeding him raw sugarcane for the first time. With the sweetness still on his tongue, he runs to a field, where he falls asleep under a glowing pink sky.
The conditions of rural poverty prove too much for his family to bear, and Rodríguez moves with his mother and three of his nine siblings across the border to McAllen, Texas. Now a resident of the “other side,” Rodríguez experiences the luxury of indoor toilets and gazes at television commercials promising more food than he has ever seen. But there is no easy passage into this brighter future.
Poignant and lyrical, House Built on Ashes contemplates the promises, limitations, and contradictions of the American Dream. Even as it tells a deeply personal story, it evokes larger political, cultural, and social realities. It speaks to what America is and what it is not. It speaks to a world of hunger, prejudice, and far too many boundaries. But it speaks, as well, to the redemptive power of beauty and its life-sustaining gift of hope.
- GenresMemoirNonfictionLGBT
206 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 10, 2017
8 people are currently reading
128 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
May 28, 2018
This is probably one of the best memoirs I have ever read.
June 16, 2019
I agree with Sandra Cisneros that this book is especially needed now. I really loved it. I particularly like how economical his language is in a prose format. He paints big pictures and details with so few words. This should be required reading, starting with Betsy DeVos. From the book blurb: House Built on Ashes contemplates the promises, limitations, and contradictions of the American Dream.
Beautifully written.
Beautifully written.
August 28, 2019
Here is a link to my review: https://northamericanreview.org/open-...
May 22, 2017
MEMOIR
José Antonio Rodríguez
House Built on Ashes: A Memoir
University of Oklahoma Press
Paperback, 978-0-8061-5501-2, (also available as an e-book), 208 pgs., $19.95
February 16, 2017
“The lessons you’ve been taught about that golden land of promise called the United States sparkle before you like a glass of crystal cold water, and you marvel at your good fortune … becoming something mighty and tall with all that no one must ever doubt is right, becoming something you don’t know yet you hope will render you almost unrecognizable to who you are now, becoming one of them, becoming American.”
José Antonio Rodríguez grew up in McAllen, Texas, the youngest of ten children born to a homemaker and a citrus-farm field hand. On weekends, they crossed the river to visit family in the tiny Mexican village where Rodríguez was born. During the summers he worked Panhandle onion fields, as his mother told him to do well in school so he won’t have to pick onions when he is her age. Rodríguez excels and is placed in the Gifted and Talented Program in school. Eventually, he applies for naturalization because the scholarship he needs is only available to U.S. citizens. He’s conflicted when he swears the oath of loyalty, forsaking Mexico forever: “Up until this moment, that village over there across the river with its border guards and police dogs seemed like nothing but outhouses, sweat, and dirt,” Rodríguez writes. “Nothing to miss. Nothing at all.”
House Built on Ashes: A Memoir by José Antonio Rodríguez is the twentieth volume in the University of Oklahoma Press’s “Chicana & Chicano Visions of the Américas” series, the editorial board of which boasts Rudolfo Anaya, Denise Chávez, and Rolando Hinojosa-Smith, among others. House Built on Ashes is Rodríguez’s account of a creative, sensitive, intelligent child growing up not quite here and not quite there; realizing he’s gay as he begins to question the logic of antiquated customs, chafing against a macho culture; learning that there’s no such thing as a small humiliation, and that dignity is essential but costly.
House Built on Ashes is structurally atypical. Loosely chronological, the story is told in lyrical yet spare prose, creating evocative sketches, like linked short stories. Rodríguez has a fine eye for small details that tell a large story and envelop you in a place and time. When his father leaves to find work in Texas, “One day the evening came, but he didn’t. One morning the rooster called but didn’t wake him.” On childhood tradeoffs: “Now we must wear shoes all the time. And the fence keeps people from stopping by to talk to Amá, the way they did on the other side.” On the jarring dislocation of moving to the United States, where his aunt’s house includes a garage: “Why would cars need a room?” Rodríguez is a master of the simile. At the border inspection, they “stare at our hands like we didn’t always have them”; his cousin’s bed is “tall and full like cakes from a bakery,” “her curls tight like her giggles.”
Packing for a Thanksgiving trip from Rodríguez’s upstate New York university to Texas to visit family serves as catalyst to excavate the past. “I think then of who we are before we are taught customs, flags, pledges of allegiance, names of nation-states, their margins on a map, and the armed men who guard them,” Rodríguez writes. “I think of what we lose when we win.”
Originally published by Lone Star Literary Life.
José Antonio Rodríguez
House Built on Ashes: A Memoir
University of Oklahoma Press
Paperback, 978-0-8061-5501-2, (also available as an e-book), 208 pgs., $19.95
February 16, 2017
“The lessons you’ve been taught about that golden land of promise called the United States sparkle before you like a glass of crystal cold water, and you marvel at your good fortune … becoming something mighty and tall with all that no one must ever doubt is right, becoming something you don’t know yet you hope will render you almost unrecognizable to who you are now, becoming one of them, becoming American.”
José Antonio Rodríguez grew up in McAllen, Texas, the youngest of ten children born to a homemaker and a citrus-farm field hand. On weekends, they crossed the river to visit family in the tiny Mexican village where Rodríguez was born. During the summers he worked Panhandle onion fields, as his mother told him to do well in school so he won’t have to pick onions when he is her age. Rodríguez excels and is placed in the Gifted and Talented Program in school. Eventually, he applies for naturalization because the scholarship he needs is only available to U.S. citizens. He’s conflicted when he swears the oath of loyalty, forsaking Mexico forever: “Up until this moment, that village over there across the river with its border guards and police dogs seemed like nothing but outhouses, sweat, and dirt,” Rodríguez writes. “Nothing to miss. Nothing at all.”
House Built on Ashes: A Memoir by José Antonio Rodríguez is the twentieth volume in the University of Oklahoma Press’s “Chicana & Chicano Visions of the Américas” series, the editorial board of which boasts Rudolfo Anaya, Denise Chávez, and Rolando Hinojosa-Smith, among others. House Built on Ashes is Rodríguez’s account of a creative, sensitive, intelligent child growing up not quite here and not quite there; realizing he’s gay as he begins to question the logic of antiquated customs, chafing against a macho culture; learning that there’s no such thing as a small humiliation, and that dignity is essential but costly.
House Built on Ashes is structurally atypical. Loosely chronological, the story is told in lyrical yet spare prose, creating evocative sketches, like linked short stories. Rodríguez has a fine eye for small details that tell a large story and envelop you in a place and time. When his father leaves to find work in Texas, “One day the evening came, but he didn’t. One morning the rooster called but didn’t wake him.” On childhood tradeoffs: “Now we must wear shoes all the time. And the fence keeps people from stopping by to talk to Amá, the way they did on the other side.” On the jarring dislocation of moving to the United States, where his aunt’s house includes a garage: “Why would cars need a room?” Rodríguez is a master of the simile. At the border inspection, they “stare at our hands like we didn’t always have them”; his cousin’s bed is “tall and full like cakes from a bakery,” “her curls tight like her giggles.”
Packing for a Thanksgiving trip from Rodríguez’s upstate New York university to Texas to visit family serves as catalyst to excavate the past. “I think then of who we are before we are taught customs, flags, pledges of allegiance, names of nation-states, their margins on a map, and the armed men who guard them,” Rodríguez writes. “I think of what we lose when we win.”
Originally published by Lone Star Literary Life.
July 31, 2019
This is one of the books WCPSS has chosen for required reading for high school English starting next year. I may have liked this book more if I weren't reading the whole time from the perspective of a teacher, but I couldn't get over how bad of a choice I think this is for high school kids. It was actually making me angry thinking about it. The book is a memoir written in vignettes, mostly page long flashes of memory, so it meanders without a clear plot progression. The sparse dialogue is written without standard punctuation, so it's hard to follow. In fact, the whole book is a difficult read and requires some intense inferring. The writing is poetic and really lovely in moments, but that won't matter to my typical 16 year old student, who will only notice that the book is boring. Parents will only notice the sexually explicit chapter involving two 9 and 11 year old boys and the f- word used multiple times. And I work at a fairly liberal high school with high achieving students! I can't imagine trying to teach this with struggling students or out in the conservative corners of the county.
November 7, 2019
This book confirms my theory that regardless of where you grew up along the border, the stories are similarly connected in some way. Rodriguez's memoir is comparable to other Latino memoirs, but also very different. First of all, there aren't that many books detailing the growing up experience in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. The location is what attracted me to this book, but he doesn't really talk in depth about his environment which is okay because it wasn't a straight forward memoir style book. He details his life growing up in Mexico and then arriving in the states as student who struggled to fit in. He does a wonderful job of detailing his life and thoughts about the complex world around him as he is growing up.
I loved his simplistic writing style and how he used imagery and symbolism to convey what he's trying to say. This book reminds me of Rene Saldana's, "Jumping Tree", however Rodriguez writes certain chapters in a poetic form that is lyrical and methodical where each line makes you think about what he's really trying to say.
How he came to be a writer and professor from "ashes" is really a testament of how much he overcame and this book personifies "living the American dream".
Well done Dr. Rodriguez!
I loved his simplistic writing style and how he used imagery and symbolism to convey what he's trying to say. This book reminds me of Rene Saldana's, "Jumping Tree", however Rodriguez writes certain chapters in a poetic form that is lyrical and methodical where each line makes you think about what he's really trying to say.
How he came to be a writer and professor from "ashes" is really a testament of how much he overcame and this book personifies "living the American dream".
Well done Dr. Rodriguez!
May 6, 2022
An excellent memoir of growing up in Mexico and McAllen, told as a series of vignettes. In House Built on Ashes, Rodriguez navigates poverty, immigration, and his own homosexuality. I enjoyed the simplicity of Rodriguez's narration of his early years. Rodriguez uses simple vocabulary and syntax to create a child's-eye-view of his early life, but his talent for sensory language makes for sophisticated writing with an emotional punch.
While the narration ends at a logical point (graduation, citizenship, a visit to his old house), the ending still felt abrupt and unsatisfying to me. Perhaps I'm just a sucker for Hollywood endings that tie up stories in a neat little bow, but I felt that something was missing from it. I'm not sure if I wanted some big revelation about the ways of the universe, or a sense of clarified purpose and identity, but the conclusion didn't do it for me.
While the narration ends at a logical point (graduation, citizenship, a visit to his old house), the ending still felt abrupt and unsatisfying to me. Perhaps I'm just a sucker for Hollywood endings that tie up stories in a neat little bow, but I felt that something was missing from it. I'm not sure if I wanted some big revelation about the ways of the universe, or a sense of clarified purpose and identity, but the conclusion didn't do it for me.
February 20, 2022
This book was assigned to me for my AP Lang class. I am not a big nonfiction/memoir person but this book had valuable insight into the American education system and racial prejudices, especially in the south and I think it’s a valuable read if you are looking to educate yourself on the realities of the education system.
May 23, 2017
A story that needs to be told
I'm so grateful that I was able to experience it.
I'm so grateful that I was able to experience it.
February 19, 2025
I had to read this book for AP Lang. I actually read it AND I loved it 💪
October 3, 2021
Uhhhhh, beautiful writing, no rlly mind blowing resolution.
April 29, 2022
I loved the story and everything about this book. Beautifully written and with such poetic words. This book is one that will truly live on.
December 23, 2021
good writing style, meh content
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews