The Achievement of Desire

Richard Rodriguez's The Achievement of Desire barely makes any connection to my life. I was always the golden child. My parents are working class but it didn't take their wants of better lives for their children for me to want better for myself. Growing up I've been to 3 different elementary schools all witting 3 years. I went from a poor lower class to an elite upper class back down to middle class. I knew from there what I wanted. And I knew what it took to get there. My parents loved me and did what they could to help me but instead of having the inability to help me at a certain point it was more of certain areas. My mom was always a genius in the English department and my daddy has always loved anything medical so his help came more so in high school when I was introduced to a course called HOPE. Back to my academic career, my dad had instilled in me and all of his children that we were here to do great things. But he also let me know that there was a ladder that I needed to climb and at the moment I was at the very bottom. I was/am a peasant. And I understood this concept very well. I took this concept and ran with it. I knew I would have to work harder than my parents had. However unlike the "Scholarship boy" that Robert Hoggart describes; I knew how to differentiate between my life at home and my life at school. I can partially say that part of the reason that I could was because I attended majority African American students with a faculty of African Americans who truly believed in us. That was all I needed. Even though my family was working class we all understood the importance of reading and learning. Unlike Rodriguez's brother who even though he excelled in school himself still taunted his younger brother with names like "Hey, Four Eyes!" or jokes being made within the family that I was "hiding under my bed with a book." I was the kid who could balance both lives.