Identity
A major theme in the book is that of identity and namely how a person builds his or her identity. Some elements that play an important part are language and the racial background and these all shape in some way or another the way a person defines himself. Family also plays and important role and the author hints that sometimes, the only way through which someone can build an individual identity is by leaving behind all the things that defined him as a child. By going into a new environment, the person in question then can slowly figure out what type of person he or she wants to be and then slowly become the person they want to be.
Race
Race is another important theme in the book because the author comes from a group considered as being a minority in America. Because of this, government officials tried to make sure that they felt included and thus tried to pass different laws imposing a bilingual educational system and a large number of measures that would force institutions to accept those who were a minority. Rodriguez was against those measures and he believed that instead of unifying the people, it created an even bigger drift between the Americans and the Mexicans and it made the situation even worse than it was because then some people blamed the Mexicans for getting things they were not entitled to.
Silence
Another theme in the novel is the idea of silence and how it affects people in general. Rodriguez connects the idea of silence with the a lack of public identity and he claims that the only reason why some people are silence is because they have yet to figure out who they want to be. Rodriguez also highlights the idea that a person can be silent in a certain environment such as the public space but be loud and assertive in the private one because that person feels comfortable expressing himself or herself in the private environment. Rodriguez finds his voice towards the end of his essays and what is interesting to note is that while Rodriguez became "louder’’, his parents succumbed to silence.
