Richard Rodriguez's works create troubling situations for many scholars. Though numerous critics see him as the penultimate Chicano writer, many others see his writing as only pandering to the elite. However, all politics and controversies aside, he is a writer whose ideas upon language and public confession have been revolutionary. Throughout the thesis, I argue that Rodriguez's ideas upon language and identity are applicable to the social media landscape that we reside in currently, especially the public confession. Also, I use deconstructionism, along with postmodern criticism, to illustrate the changing arc of Rodriguez's confession from his first autobiography to his final one. In his first memoir, Rodriguez remains in the closet upon his sexuality, and the reader only catches glimpses of the 'real' character inside his work. In the second memoir, the reader sees a better glimpse because of his coming out; yet, even in this regard, he does not do so wholly and still leaves his confession unfinished. By the third, he applies themes and problems seen in his first and second works to discuss our browning nature, and how we are all sinners and that we desire to confess our sins. In my assessment of Rodriguez, I argue throughout all my chapters upon a measure of irreconcilability between the private world of the Hispanic immigrant family and the public sphere that they are forced to inhabit because of his citizenship and education. This irreconcilability creates a drastic limiting of identity for the author that Rodriguez is forced to navigate which creates his desire for confession.

As a former UC Berkeley undergraduate and a University of Vermont graduate student, this is an educational autobiography of a self-identified Hapa, or mixed-race Asian American, through the lens of race and identity. Exploring what it means to be “white” and “privileged,” and realizing that these concepts--like identity--are fluid, this thesis adopts a dual methodology that includes personal narrative, as well as a meta-critical reflection. This thesis focuses on three memoirs: Bone Black and Wounds of Passion by bell hooks, and Hunger of Memory by Richard Rodriguez, each of which explore themes of reclaiming voice and reconstructing identity with regards to race, class, and culture.

The objective of this project was to come to a clear understanding of Irish-American culture--and how that culture expresses itself in individuals. The text considers the role of myth, religion, language, tradition, stereotypes and to a lesser degree gender in the molding of character. Although autobiographical in nature many of the themes are those that encompass the Irish-American experience as a whole. Questions asked throughout the process include, what makes one hyphenated? How is this culture passed from generation to generation? And is it multifaceted? Is there more than one way to express being Irish-American. The text is presented is a narrative which is also part of the tradition it presents and makes the assertion that Irish-Americans have a unique culture within the larger American whole. It asserts, like Maxine Hong-Kingston and Richard Rodriguez that the tradition from whence we come shapes who we are.

This dissertation studies the politics of collective identity in the essays of Jesús Colón, Julia Álvarez and Richard Rodriguez. Through their essays I study the different configurations of collective identity (mainly those of Latino people, minorities, diasporic, transnational and national subjects) that these writes evaluate from their social position in the United States. A review of their works reveals important aspects about the problem of identity of a first and second generation of Latinos who try to understand themselves as part of the heterogeneous community in the United States. These three writers focus on the malleability of identity and use it to understand different ideologies and values. In his essays Colón highlights the reality of a subject that is economically marginalized by the historical process of capitalism. In addition, he advocates for the union of transnational workers of the Puerto Rican Diaspora in New York, who face stratification and social isolation. In contrast, Álvarez explores the construction of a diasporic identity that relies on history and on transnationalism. This author places emphasis on her writing as a nation, as a means to reflect and re-write the Dominican transnational identity. Rodriguez, the third essayist I study in this research, promotes the foundation of an American identity and evaluates the ways in which it is obstructed by the practices of communities that identify as minority. The objective of my research is to analyze the development of Latino identity using the models that these authors explore. I rely on their ideas and techniques to study the complicated and conflicting process of the evolution of a collective identity. Throughout the 20th century, these authors developed their own approach to the ideological fragmentation and mestizaje emphasized by postcolonial thought. This fragmentation influences their interpretation of history, ethnic/racial identity, family, language, education, cultural hybridity, representation and nationalism.

abstract: Race is a complex system founded on social ideologies that categorize and evaluate human beings into different groups based on their visible characteristics (e.g., skin color) that, according to this notion of race, indicate a person's personal traits (e.g., intelligence). The concept of race has been an integral part of American society since the ratification of the United States Constitution in the late 18th century. Early on, the practice of race within American society established one particular group as the norm: the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the distinctions among racial groups essentially came down to "white" and "nonwhite." Consequently, certain social inequalities were bestowed upon those groups that did not fit the model of the dominant "white" group. Autobiographies, especially those from marginalized groups, can serve as an important source of these social disparities since the author is able to recount their own social experiences vis-à-vis racial practices within society. With this in mind, this thesis analyses the concept of race in relation to the personal experiences of two authors through their respective autobiographies: Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez (1982) by Richard Rodriguez and How Did You Get to Be Mexican?: A White/Brown Man's Search for Identity (1999) by Kevin R. Johnson. The critical work of Paula M. L. Moya, Linda Martín Alcoff, Hazel Rose Markus, George M. Fredrickson, Genaro M. Padilla and others are used as the theoretical framework in the literary analysis of these authors' texts. In summary, the results of this study demonstrate the concept of race as a salient aspect in regards to the ideological formation of each respective author. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Spanish 2014