Richard Rodriguez in “Borderland”

Abstract

Starting with Days of Obligation: An Argument with My Mexican Father (1992), the recent writings of Richard Rodriguez not only have stressed the centrality of cultural interaction and exchange, but have also resorted to Jose Vasconcelos’s notion of the “cosmic race” in their analyses of contemporary American reality. Although his essays havepoints in common with theories of the “border”and of the “borderlands,” Rodriguez’s celebration of hybridity has not led him to automatically embrace progressive public policies. On the contrary, he now bases his criticisms of affirmative action and bilingual education on the “cosmic race”and the concomitant emphasis on cultural hybridity. However, he has also become a defender of immigrant and gay rights. Rodriguez’s writings question the frequent assumption of a necessary linkage between the acknowledgment of hybridity and the defense of multiculturalism. But they also question what is “conservative” or ‘progressive” within the Chicano community.