Hunger of Privacy
*I don't usually post my responses, but I welcome any comments you might have on this one because questions of public/private and essentialism are interesting to me and might end up in my diss. Enjoi:
I find Rodriguez’s emphasis of the interplay of public and private discourse to be the most interesting facet of Hunger of Memory because it troubles and adds complexity to the term “minority.” The idea of conflict between home and school language and culture is certainly nothing new in composition studies. What I find most intriguing is not Rodriguez’s sentiments—that schooling necessitates a harsh but necessary reformation of identity, the replacement of home language and values with those of the school (dominant culture/gringos)—what was interesting to me was Rodrigez’s unflinching explanation of the position of the scholarship boy, and eventually, the minority scholar held up against his will as a spokesman for all latinos.
Hunger of Memory informs our debate of what constitutes a minority rhetoric by revealing the painful price of the political valence we have (and continue to) attach to race. No doubt these valences have a basis in reality: racism exists, and as a responsible society there is (rightly) a felt responsibility to respond to it. Rodriguez, however, identifies a different understanding of the word “minority”; for him it is not synonymous with race. Simply put, Rodriguez does not feel as though he was a victim of racism. As he notes in “Profession,” he does not feel himself a minority; he does not feel “socially disadvantaged.” Here the many definitions of “minority” we worked out during our discussion of The Souls of Black Folk (all with an ultimately negative connotation) return to trouble (in the Harraway-ian sense) our discussion. For “minority” is not arbitrary; the term itself implies a multiplicity of meanings and attendant political valences. In short, “minority” is a label, something hegemony has glued onto some people so that it can figure out what to do with them. (“What does is it feel like to be a problem…”)
What’s in the rejection of a label? For that matter, what’s in a label? Over the summer I studied the concept of disability, specifically learning disability, and the assignment of labels. Much of the power derived from labels derives from the labeler, the master who (perhaps innocently) designed the language and the grammar (connotation and structure); the label-ee is captured by the label and is offered no escape from it except through radical, consummately rhetorical (public) speech. Our discussion of “master’s tools” takes on new significance when we speak of counter-rhetoric. What does it take for a minority to successfully assert he is not discriminated against, disadvantaged or devalued? What does it take to be counted a man, an intellectual, instead of a problem? Instead of a public expression of an institution’s “commitment to diversity”?
Privacy comes into the picture when we consider Rodriguez’s response to his critics. It is with reluctance that Rodriguez took up his pen on the politics surrounding “minority.” I get the sense he’d have been much happier hanging out in the reading room of British Museum if he wasn’t already irreversibly troubled by his label, his public identity. Much rather, he’d want the anonymity, the freedom from troublesome associations from which white scholars are allowed to emerge. In short, he would have preferred the luxury of privacy. But, and I think this is the ultimate message of the book, one who is labeled (by his skin or accent or Latinate last name) does not have the luxury of remaining a private citizen. Instead, against his will, he becomes a spokesperson. The truly interesting thing is the way in which Rodriguez rejected the label. His way of rejecting the label was elementally Catholic: to sacrifice. He left academe on the cusp of a successful academic career, and chose to abandon Renaissance literature. He accepted the spokesperson role; luckily for us, he crafted his own message, even if that message endears him to no one.
