"Like others who know the pain of public alienation, we transformed the knowledge of our public separateness and made it consoling—the reminder of intimacy.”
Rodriguez talked about his family in the first chapter and how the language he used at home affected his social life. What Rodriguez highlights is that immigrant families often feel alienated in the society where they move to. They don’t find their place easily and are sometimes criticized both by their own people and by the community in which they try to integrate themselves in. in order to feel better, they create a micro-community out of their own family and create their family to be close-knit and capable of offering everything one would want. To do this, the language is often used as a toll to create a sense of closeness and more than often the language used is the mother tongue.
"If, because of my schooling, I had grown culturally separated from my parents, my education finally had given me ways of speaking and caring about the fact.’’
Rodriguez realized that education alienated him from his parents. Even from the tender age of six, when his parents were asked by Rodriguez’s teachers to speak with him English at home, he was able to see how the different language separated them. This alienation became even more accentuated after he was accepted into college and moved to England. After that, when he returned home, he felt as if his parents were interrogating him and resenting him for doing something they were not able to do. But education was also the thing that helped Rodriguez get past this and try to understand his parents, it made him realize that he can overcome the problem and talk about it in a suitable manner.
"When all else was different, the Church provided an essential link.’’
Despite being a learned man, Rodriguez never forgot about his faith and about the Church he grew up into. Rodriguez was raised in a Catholic family, and he was always impressed by the ceremonies and masses he saw as a child. As he grew up, even though the ceremonies and religion changed, he remained a devotee and considered religion as being an important part in his life. In fact, religion is what he considered as being the link between his identity as a Mexican and the new identity he tried to build for himself. Religion is what remained the same no matter what and what helped him feel grounded and secure.
