SOURCE: Comey, Alison. “View from the Melting Pot.” Christian Science Monitor 74 (12 March 1982): B1, B3.

In the following review, Comey discusses Hunger of Memory and Rodriguez's personal struggle with cultural assimilation.

You who read this act of contrition should know that by writing it I seek a kind of forgiveness—not yours. The forgiveness, rather, of those many persons whose absence from higher education permitted me to be classed as a minority student. I wish that they would read this. I doubt that they ever will.

Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez is the autobiography of a Mexican-American whose dark skin is frequently mistaken for a suntan. He has outdistanced los pobros, the swarthy laborers of common ancestry whose muscularity belies their absolute powerlessness. He has surpassed his parents who, their own imaginations stunted, made possible his exit, from their realm. He has relinquished “cultural identity”—that...