Topic > Wish Fulfillment, by Richard Rodriguez and...

Richard Rodriguez, the author of Wish Fulfillment, and Malcolm X, the author of Learning to Read, also describe the ways in which their lives they have been profoundly influenced as altered, due to their pursuit of an education. Rodriguez writes of his academic successes, while Malcolm X describes his education as self-taught. Attaining an education changed both men, and both men pursued an education for different reasons. In his writing The Achievement of Desire, Richard Rodriguez describes his pursuit of academic achievement as a way to distance himself from his family and cultural roots: “…One of the main reasons for my success in the classroom was that I could not forget that school was changing me and separating me from the life I enjoyed before becoming a student” (Rodriguez 196). An awareness that took him twenty years to admit, Rodriguez. His embarrassment and sense of shame over his apparent inadequacies, as well as those of his parents, provided the driving force for studying. Rodriguez describes himself as “The boy who first walked into a classroom barely able to speak English…” (195). Education changed Rodriguez, allowing him to navigate academia without the cultural baggage of his past: Describing himself as the boy with a scholarship, Rodriguez outlines this progression in the following statement: “As he advances in his studies, the boy notices that his his mother and father have not changed as much as he has. Rather, when he sees them, they often remind him of the person he once was and the life he shared with them” (198). This awareness has guided Rodriguez throughout his academic career as well as his life. Likewise, in his writing Learning to Read, Malcolm Both men used the pursuit of knowledge and the knowledge they gained to distance themselves from their undesirable beginnings. Malcolm For both authors, education was a means of becoming incredibly different individuals. Malcolm Works Cited Rodriguez, Richard. "Wish Fulfillment" Reading America Eighth Ed. 2010: 194-206. Malcolm X. “Learning to Read” Reading America Eighth Ed. 2010: 210-18