Please Respond/ Give feedback to both discussion points
1. In this emotional roller coaster of a narrative Rodriguez tells the story about a summer job he took over the summer. His friends and other peers made it out that the labor he would be doing was very hard, and they almost hinted that he would not be able to handle it. Rodriguez did not mind manual labor at all. It was a job to him, and he was simply doing the work to make some money. The labor did not scare, it much rather challenged him. Being dedicated to the challenge made him succeed even further. He explained that some of the men he was working with had college degrees. He was not ashamed of working while being a college student. personally, I am not sure why one would. A job is a job; you’re making a living for yourself. Rodriguez learned that summer that working hard with a positive attitude will grant more success than working hard with a negative attitude. In his work he was very descriptive about where he was working, what he was doing, and how he was feeling. One sentence that struck me was when he wrote “A nervous spark of pain would fly up to my shoulder and settle to burn like an ember in the thick of my arm.” (Rodriguez, 2019). That sentence alone you could almost feel how he was feeling while shoveling and doing the grunt work that needed to be done. His encounter with the poor was very life-changing for him. He related to them through his parents and grandparents, and he felt for them. He wanted to speak up for them. Their silence was very loud and obvious in his ear. From then on out he decided he wanted more than that, more for himself, to show that you can do such a thing in just one lifetime.
References
Rodriguez, R. (2019). The Workers. In K. Russell (Ed.) Write Now (2nd edition) (p. 99-101). McGraw-Hill Education.
https://digitalbookshelf.southuniversity.edu/#/books/9781260127041/cfi/6/40!/4/2/2/2/2@0:0
2.
The narrative is about Rodriguez telling a story about a job he worked one summer. He doesn’t mind doing manual labor and he’s not ashamed to be doing physical work while being a college student. When he first started the work he was excited but he quickly found out it was harder than he expected. One of the things he noticed was the pain. “A nervous spark of pain would fly up to my arm and settle to burn like an ember in the thick of my shoulder.” (Rodriguez, 2019 p. 99) He noticed and was surprised that many of the workers had college diplomas. They weren’t the stigma his parents always talked about. “The men of that summer were middle-class Americans. They certainly didn’t constitute an oppressed society.” (Rodriguez, 2019 p. 100)
In his encounter with los probres he was sad for them and was determined to not become like them. He related to them because of his parents and all the stories they told him about what they went through and observed. In the end he learned to accept himself and not to think of him as being at an disadvantage because of the stereotype. He also learned to accept his complexion and body type. “The curse of physical shame was broken by the sun: I was no longer ashamed by my body.” (Rodriguez, 2019 p. 101) “… I was able to regard my complexion without shame.” (Rodriguez, 2019 p. 101)
References
Rodriguez, R. (2019). The Workers. In K. Russell (Ed.) Write Now (2nd edition) (p. 99-101). McGraw-Hill Education. https://digitalbookshelf.southuniversity.edu/#/books/9781260127041/cfi/6/40!/4/2/2/2/2@0:0