Richard Rodriguez In His Book Brown example essay topic

America is ever changing. Over the centuries it has transformed in many ways. There has been an increase in immigrants, especially Hispanics, which has caused a transformation of both language and culture. Richard Rodriguez in his book Brown: The Last Discovery of America, and in other essays has brought his views on these matters and presents brown as a new way of describing America. Brown as color; as impurity; as language; as America. Richard Rodriguez is a writer who is artistic, and has an idealistic way of recounting things.

In his essay "Late Victorians" he writes how a woman jumps off the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. He describes it as. ".. before she stepped onto the sky. To land like a spilled purse at my feet", (Encounters, 496) He compares the woman hitting the ground as a "spilled purse". When you think of a spilled purse you don't think of tragedy, so his comparing this insignificant incident of a purse hitting the ground to the death of a woman catches you off guard. Rodriquez says it in such a tranquil manner that the tragedy seems to be unrealistic.

He again shows romanticism somewhere else in the essay: On a Sunday in summer, ten years ago, I was walking home from the Latin mass at Saint Patrick's, the old Irish parish downtown, when I saw thousands of people on Market Street. It was San Francisco's Gay Freedom Day parade-not marching backs. There were floats. Banners blocked single lives thematically into a processional mass, not unlike the consortium's of the blessed in Renaissance painting, each saint cherishing the apparatus of his martyrdom. (493) Rodriguez's comparing the parade with religious allusions makes it more glorious.

He compares the parade of floats and banners to a "processional mass". He satirically portrays gays as saints just as he is coming from church, which considers homosexuality as a sin. He is basically beautifying the parade. He romanticizes to capture your attention and to bring you into his world. He wants you to see things as he sees them. He wants to "defy anyone who... say [s] what is appropriate to my voice" (Brown, xi).

Rodriguez, in his essay "Peter's Avocado", expresses " [b] r own as impurity", (Brown, 194). This brown is not brown as color but as something "mixed, confused, lumped, impure, unpasteurized, as motives are mixed... ". ("Peter's Avocado", 197). However, brown can be "the cement between the leaves of paradox" (Preface, xi). Brown is complex and can be many things at once.

Rodriguez adds many metaphors comparing brown to "tarnished past... as refreshing as green... as old Roman gardens or pennies in a fountain... gurgled root beer, tobacco, monkey fur, catarrh", ("The Brown Study", 35). As Rodriguez says brown is impure, he keeps bringing up impurity and says how "impurity [is] are fresh and wonderful to me", and he "extol [s] impurity" (202, xi). He states how "impurities are motives, weights, considerations, [and] temptations", ("Peter's Avocado", 202). Given that he has a keenness for impurities and complexities, you can infer he of course loves brown, which is to him both impure and multifaceted.

Rodriguez focuses on brown as a mixture of races, and it's role in America. He says in the preface how he is a "brown man" and how he has "brown thoughts", (xi). He continues to say how brown isn't a "singular color, not a strict recipe", but a mixture of colors (xi). By colors he means races and nationalities.

So in other words a brown person comes from a mixture of nationalities, and cultures. So when he says "America is browning" he saying it's a mixing together of all the people that live here (xii). "The future is brown, is my thesis" ("In the Brown Study", 35). This fusion of cultures is creating a new America. To Rodriguez, brown is the end to the constant wandering of individuals and to a drawing together of all in America.

He "celebrate [s]" at the browning of America (x ). Rodriguez writes about what it is to be Hispanic in America and how Hispanic is a "brown assertion", ("Hispanic", 110). To get his points across he uniquely writes his thoughts in disconnected allusions and stories on brown, race, America, education, as well as family, and each time he returns to them they gain new significance and enrich the complexity of the whole idea on America and Hispanics. In his essay "Hispanic" he believes that in America, the term "Hispanic has encouraged the Americanization of millions of Hispanics. But at the same time, Hispanic has encouraged the Latinization of non-Hispanics", (105).

This assimilation of the numerous Hispanics in America creates a transformation of the cultures of both Hispanics and non-Hispanics. Rodriguez subsequently goes deeper into the American language and discus's the argument of using the term Hispanic or Latino. Through the discussion of language he returns to the Americanization of Hispanics by stating how Hispanic mothers fought to eliminate bilingual education because their children could not "swim in the American current", (113). Mother wanted their children to "engage in the American flow directly and to let their children be taken by it" (114). He follows by saying how almost everything, whether it is instructions for appliances or signs in offices and hospitals, is in both English and Spanish even though the national language is English. Rodriguez "marvel [s]" at the eagerness of the middle-class to learn Spanish, and even suggests that their speaking Spanish is really them talking in "American English", especially since "Spanish is becoming [the] unofficial... second language of the United States" (115,114).

This clearly emphasizes his thought that the term Hispanic has supported the "Latinization of non-Hispanics". Rodriguez's essay "The Prince and I" is also a perfect example of how he writes in disconnected stories. Rodriguez talks about Puritanism, Indians, a football mascot, and the theater all in one essay. Even with a vast imagination he is still able to gets his point across. He suggests that Americans have a tendency to use the word "puritan" in the derogatory way as seen in America's fear of every thing that has to do with the theater as it gave children "big ideas", which weren't beneficial for them (49, 50). He gives the history of how puritans came to America from England for religious freedom.

The Indians, which had hierarchy, celebrated thanksgiving with the puritans and came dressed in "theatricals impersonating Nature", (52). These costumes and social groups were what the puritans had fled from in England. He continues with the story of Prince Lightfoot, the Indian football mascot. Prince Lightfoot again depicts the costumes of past Indians and the hierarchy that was utilized by the Indians. Timm Williams, or Prince Lightfoot, with his theatrical costume and dance was able to depict his true nature.

Rodriguez then adds an excerpt from the University News Service, which gives news about Williams's death and how he will always be remembered as Prince Lightfoot. He moves to another theatrical moment. Rodriguez recalls someone describing seeing Gertrude Lawrence in the famous "Shall We Dance" scene ball gown from "The King and I". Sometime after that Lawrence dies and is buried on that same dress; buried in the role of Anna Leon owens. These stories all show Rodriguez's belief in the importance of roles. Rodriguez even confirms the importance of roles when he says, "roles are to be taken seriously" (79).

Our role in America, whether we are those who are in the background as was Prince Lightfoot or those who shine "in the light" of the public eye as was Gertrude Lawrence (79). A stylistic feature is Rodriguez's inclination toward individual experience over academic overview. In his essay, "The Triad of Alexis de Tocqueville", many of Rodriguez's anecdotes are about his personal experiences as a child and an adult. One experience is how as a child a boy came up to him and said: If you " re white, you " re all right; If you " re brown, stick around; If you " re black, stand back. (4) This experience helped him see "the way things lay in the city below", or in other words how people of different color were thought of in society (4). An additional experience is how he is attacked for drinking from a "White fountain", which again shows the view of color in society (15).

He follows it with him seeing Malcolm X speak. He uses experience to add and to complicate what he is trying to convey about color. These experiences help comprehend his view on America's preoccupation with white and black and his view of race in America. To Rodriguez, his "brown was not halfway between black and white" (4).

Throughout Rodriguez's essays you can see a love for the English language. Even as a child he loved to read to the confusion of his parents. His mother would ask him, "What do you see in your books?" ("The Achievement of Desire", 476) Whenever they couldn't find him they would joke the he "must be hiding under [his] bed with a book", (476). In his essay "The Triad of Alexis de Tocqueville", He articulates how in the nineteenth century Africans in America were able to learn how to read and write English, take it, and make it their own. Later on he goes to acknowledge the African Americans stealing the English language declaring how, "I cannot imagine myself a writer, ... without African slaves... transforming the English language into the American tongue, transforming me, rescuing me, with a coruscating nonchalance", (Brown, 31).

Also, in his essay, "Hispanic", he goes to articulate how we do not speak "English" but "American" (111). Even before the time that slaves reinvented the English language "our tongue tasted of Indian", (111). Our language is not a dull, meticulous language, but as Rodriguez compares it, "a dog's tongue, an organ of curiosity and science", (111). He loves the history of the United States not for the battles and politics, but for the transformation and complexity of language that occurred through the centuries.

"I eulogize a literature that is suffused with brown, with allusion, irony, paradox-ha! -pleasure", (Preface, xi). With disconnected allusions, metaphors, and un realism Rodriguez not only conveys his ideas throughout his essays but also is able to show us part of himself as a writer. He respects people's role in society. He treasures how assimilation can change a culture. He has a passion for brown for converting color and race.

He loves language for it's continuous changes that it has been through over time. He values transformation, whether it is of color, culture, language, or a nation. Work Cited: 1. Rodriguez, Richard. "Late Victorians", and "The Achievement of Desire".

Encounters: Essays for Exploration and Inquiry. 2nd ed. Ed. Pat C. Hoy II and Robert Di Yanni. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000.475-492,493-505 "The Triad of Alexis de Tocqueville,"In the Brown Study,"The Prince and I,"Peter's Avocado", and "Hispanic". Brown: The Last Discovery of America.

New York: Penguin Putnam Inc, 2002..