Blog #3- "The Achievement of Desire"

     Richard Rodriguez's "The Achievement of Desire" is a story that I can very much relate to. Being a native-born American citizen and child to foreign-born parents posed a challenge for both Rodriguez and me, especially when it came to education. One thing that caught my eye in Rodriguez's story was when Rodriguez mentions, "it was my father who laughed when I claimed to be tired by reading and writing." My mother reacts in a similar way. Any time I tell her I'm tired from homework, she gasps in surprise and replies that one can't be tired from studying; one can only be tired from physical labor. This response always and still does irritate me, but it raises a fascinating point. The disparity between less educated, working class parents and their more educated children is so great that diligence and fatigue from diligence mean two different things to each party. My parents, who were raised in an agrarian household, do not understand how difficult and exhausting school can be; likewise, I may never know how hard it was for my parents to engage in labor-intensive farming early in their childhood.