Catholic Mexico and Protestant America: Good Neighbors and Bad
Rodriguez, the son of Mexican immigrant parents, one of America’s most important essayists, and a master of the personal essay, writes about the intersection of his personal life with some of the great vexing issues of America. In 1982, he published an intellectual autobiography, Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez, which was widely celebrated and criticized. The book is controversial for its skepticism regarding bilingual education and affirmative action. In 1992, he published “Days of Obligation: An Argument with My Mexican Father”, a philosophical travel book concerned with the moral landscape of America and Mexico. The book was a runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction in 1993. In 2002, he published Brown: The Last Discovery of America, a series of essays undermining America’s black and white notion of race and proposing the color brown for understanding the future (and past) of the Americas. Rodriguez worked as a journalist for the Pacific News Service in San Francisco, as a contributing editor for Harper’s magazine, and as a television commentator on _The News Hour with Jim Lehrer. His televised essays on American life were honored in 1997 with a George Peabody Award. In 1993, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal, the highest honor the federal government gives to recognize work done in the humanities.
