Hunger of Memory

“It is not possible for a child –any child- ever to use his family’s language in school. Not to understand this is to misunderstand the public uses of schooling and to trivialize the nature of intimate life –“a family’s language”. (125)
“At home they spoke spanish. The language of their Mexican past sounded in counterpoint to the English of public society. The words would come quickly, with ease. Conveyed through those sounds was the pleasing, soothing, consoling reminder of being at home.” (3)
“… los gringos. That term was interchangeable in their speech with another, even more telling, los americanos.” (4)
“The mystery remains: intimate utterance. The communications of intimacy passes through the word to enliven its sound. But it cannot be held by the word but on person.” (37)
“Intimacy is not trapped within words. It passes through words. It passes. The truth is that intimates leave the room. Doors close. Faces move away from the window. Time passes. Voices recede into the dark. Death finally quiets
This quote is very important to one of the messages the book is trying to convey. Here he is saying that public life and private life is nearly impossible to blend together. A family’s language is just that: a FAMILY’S language.
Richard is using Spanish and English differences to convey the differences between public and private life. He’s showing us here that they are like two separate languages; you can’t mix two languages and expect it to make sense. . .
Here los gringos, shows Richard’s families discomfort with white people, and how it wasn’t exactly white people but Americans
Richard is saying here that it really isn’t the words itself that make you feel something but it is the intimacy that you and the person you’re having conversation with has.
Intimacy here is a perishable object that can be destroyed, and passed on. Intimacy depends on who’s there with you, and Richard shows us here that there are only intimate words when you have intimates to say them to. the voice. And there is no way to deny it. No way to stand in the crowd, uttering one’s family language.”
“I became a self-conscious writer. A stylist. The change, I suspect, was the result of seeing my words ordered by the even, impersonal, anonymous typewriter print. As arranged by a machine, the words that I typed no longer seemed mine. I was able to see with a new appreciation for how my reader would see them." (197)
“For although I was a very good student, I was also a very bad student. I was a “scholarship boy,” a certain kind of scholarship boy.” (46)
“A primary reason for my success in the classroom was that I couldn’t forget that schooling was changing me and separating me from the life I enjoyed before becoming a student.” (47)
“Memory gently caressed each word of praise bestowed in the classroom so that compliments teachers paid me years ago come quickly to mind even today.” (54) . .
Still Richard is trying to convey to us that message of intimacy. Now that he has a machine writing down the words he is thinking, they aren’t the same to him. This is important for us though, because he now could see how someone not intimate with him would see the messages that he is trying to get to us. .
Richard wants us to know here that although he did well on his schoolwork he never really had a since of individuality.
He shows us here that he knew he was separating from a life he loved, but he couldn’t stop because that knowledge is what made him want to learn more. .
He says here that he loved being able to receive compliments for work that he has done. This shows us how much of a scholarship boy he really was.
“I intended to hurt my mother and father. I was still angry at them for having encouraged me toward classroom English” (54)
“We were destined to live on unhallowed ground, beyond the gated city of God” (92)

“Fittingly, it falls to me, as someone who so awkwardly carried the label, to question it now, its juxtaposition of terms-minority student” (178)

Richard knows that if he never learned classroom English then he’d still be close to his parents which, ironically, is why he’s angry with them. . Richard really shows us here that he still believes in his catholic faith that he grew up with.
He feels that he isn’t a minority student, because he isn’t like the rest of them. He is a middle class American and these other people didn’t have the chances that Richard was given.