Abstract
For over five years now, I have been haphazardly corresponding with Richard Rodriguez. Yes, the Richard Rodriguez. While I would never sabo tage the privilege of that electronic communication, I can say that, with the aid of his books as confirmation, Rodriguez is a sensitive soul hidden behind a prickly structure of purposeful confusion. Indeed, the wall of co nundrum that Rodriguez builds around his ethos is likely more the work of defensive strategizing than of true ideological contradiction. Yet, he loves the paradox that he projects. Rodriguez thought process, as expressed by his writing, is labyrinthine, punitive, reconciliatory, and simply pensive. However, his greatest inner conflict is not over his race or cline or ethnicity, but rather over something more arcane: the legacy of English Puritanism, against which he jabs and spars with the agility of my little dog Holly, a Setter mix, when she attempts to provoke my big dog, Buddy, a Chow mix, into play fighting.1 Consider this passage:
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