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Richard Rodriguez
(July 31, 1944 - living) U.S.A.

Richard Rodriguez

Memoirist, Journalist and Social Critic

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Richard Rodriguez was born in San Francisco, California. He grew up in Sacramento. His Parents, Leo and Victoria emigrated from Mexico in the 1920's. He spoke Spanish in his home, and when he started attending Sacred Heart Catholic school in Sacramento, he knew perhaps 50 words of English. He was foundering educationally when the nuns contacted his family and told them to encourage him to speak English at home.

This encouragement, plus lots of after-school effort by the nuns, led Rodriguez to a love of reading and literature, and strongly informed his later political views. English became the language in which he was most comfortable, and he went on to earn a bachelor's degree at Stanford University, after which he spent two years at Union Theological Seminary studying with leading Protestant and Jewish theologians. He later spent time at London's Warburg Institute and Oxford before earning a Ph.D. in Renaissance Literature at the University of California, Berkeley.

He then traveled to London on a Fullbright scholarship. Rodriguez became a free-lance writer upon receiving his degrees and in 1982 he published his controversial Hunger of Memory, an account of his upbringing that infuriated some members of the Latino community for its stand against bilingual education and affirmative action.

He also put his beliefs in practice by leaving academia when he believed he was advancing solely because of his race. Yet his views are not simply those of a neo-conservative. He actually defines himself as "left of center" and is deeply concerned with racial discourse and discourses of immigration, violence, and poverty.

He has become one of America's most well known Chicano figures; publishing a second book, Days of Obligation: Conversations With My Mexican Father, and currently works a columnist and editor for the Pacific News Service, L.A. Times, and the Newshour on PBS. He also delivers lectures around the country.

It was later in his career that Rodriguez chose to make his homosexuality public, but it has added another dimension to his important contribution to the American discussion.

In his latest nonfiction book is Brown: The Last Discovery of America (2002). Rodriguez is most recognizable from his television essays on the public television program, "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer". These award-winning essays, at the end of the hour, have been broadcast for ten years. He currently lives in San Francisco, California.

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