Los Pobres: Richard Rodriguez - Essay Example

It is clear that Rodriguez was not seeking a summer job, rather a chance to work with his back and hands. His desire is to feel his body in a unique or new way; he wanted to know the meaning of real work, even if it lasted for a short time so long as he worked like hard for once. Just like men whose desire is to fulfill their sexual fantasies by performing in the City of Night, Rodriguez wanted to fulfill his erotic dream by trying to side with the working class, a task for himself and for his audience (Dunbar-Odom 37).

As a simple laborer, Rodriguez had a positive attitude towards his contract. The work seemed simpler than his friends did and he had thought. He enjoyed doing it since he says that he had many physical pleasures during the labor. Each day counted for him, as he woke up every morning with a new working spirit. During the day, his desire to work conquered all the barriers that came his way. Sometimes he could even do too much that his colleagues were amazed, but all was for the sake of fulfilling his fantasy (Rodriguez 275).

During his shoveling work, he realized that he was not doing what was right. He was fooling himself by expecting to be admitted in the world of the laborer. He says, “I could not learn in three months what my father had meant by “real work,” to mean that what he had been doing up to that level was not sufficient enough to measure to what his father could recognize as hard work. He could not be pleased with the achievement of his son so far. He needed more experience and efforts and that for him to accomplish “real work,” he had to take the quality time.

According to his mother and father, “real work” means struggling with self-confidence to achieve the best. His father had always said that Rodriguez could not really understand what real work meant (Rodriguez 278). For these parents, real work generally meant hard work. Real work does not involve individual education or what he or she earns at the end of the day, but what can be practically recognized by everyone. One should not depend on other people but work tirelessly to reap the best he sows.

Rodriguez is not sure about what “real work” is. He based this on the rationale that it was all about his fantasies, yet even a perfectly thought fantasy can be fractured by those who fail to authenticate such performances as real. Works Cited Dunbar, Odom Donna. Defying the Odds: Class and the Pursuit of Higher Literacy. New York: Suny Press, 2007. Print. Rodriguez, Richard. Los Pobres: Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez. New York: Random House Publishing Group, 1982. Print.