Rodriguez believes that the stories that are never told--the family secrets--kept by the grandmothers who could tell us about the brown children on the public properties of the properties of Washington, Madison, and Jefferson . Such are the stories that should get prizes.
He says, "He loathes Mexico. He loathes rich Mexicans [but he hangs out with them]." In Mexico, he is told by such elites, "I never met a Mexican author who looks like you [so brown and so Indio-looking]."
"We are a mix," Rodriguez claims. He adds that almost all African Americans that he knows well have inevitably share at some point in their relationships that they have Indian [Native American] ancestors. Rodriguez asks them, "Why do you say you are black?"
Rodriguez explains that in 17th Century Mexico under the Spanish, the children of the black slaves and Indians were called "Chino". Why doesn't the black man see himself as Chinese (Chino) or Brown?
"Why don't we call ourselves what we are?" adds Rodriguez, "A mix" that has been developing for millenia!
In polyglot California, Richard Rodriguez was born of hard-working lower-middle class emigres from Mexico. He spoke Spanish at home until he was about 6 years old. Then was trained to live in America by nuns from Ireland. Finally, he claims that he has also been living and yearning for decades for a post-racial America, a post-racial Europe and a post-racial world.
NOTES
[1] Paravisini-Gebert, Lizabeth, "Richard Rodriguez's Hunger of Memory and the Rejection of the Private Self", http://faculty.vassar.edu/liparavi/article/RichardRodriguez.pdf
[2] Bebout, Lee, (2015) "Postracial Mestizaje: Richard Rodriguez's Racial Imagination in an America Where Everyone is Beginning to Melt", American Studies Journal Vol 54, No 1, pp. 89-114.
[3] Richard Rodriguez at an interview in USA Embassy in Madrid, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbcRQYMRqD0
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