Description: Beginning with the conquest of Mexico by Corts and ending in 1992 in San Francisco, Rodriguez portrays Mexico and the United States as moral rivals upon the landscape of his beloved California. One wears the mask of tragedy, and the other the mask of comedy; but by the end, they have swapped roles.
Brief description:
Richard Rodriguez was born in 1944 in San Francisco. He received a BA from Stanford University and an MA from Columbia University, was a PhD candidate in English Renaissance at the University of California at Berkeley, and attended the Warburg Institute in London on a Fulbright fellowship. Rodriguez has worked as a teacher, international journalist, and educational consultant.
Review Quotes:
"The best American essayist as far as I'm concerned...He writes a lonely line of individualism, the grandeur and grief of the American soul."
-- "Village Voice"