"...our
education has exacted a large price in exchange for the large benefits it has
conferred upon us" (84).
This
whole essay isn't specifically aimed at one single group of people in the
world, but rather applicable to everybody's life, assuming they are searching
for change. This sentence is incredibly compelling in that it makes one think
about the cultural, social, individual, not monetary prices that we pay in
order to attempt a shot at success, or what one may think that is. In
Rodriguez's case, education was achieved at the cost of losing connection and
the roots he had with who he was and his family. This is not to be taken in the
"my family is dead to me way", but rather that he had to separate the
new academic culture he was in, and live in it, from his nostalgic past.
Rodriguez said that his parents took a toll as well, in that they gave up a
slight connection to their son for his sake. They wished to see him "succeed",
succeed in quotes because education ≠ success, through education and move up
the social ladder. I side with the whole statement that the costs of life exist
and that some sacrifices must be made, either intentionally or
unintentionally... sometimes we may not even see or notice that we lose
something in gaining another. There are also times that we have been paying a
price that we hadn't even knew we had in the first place, with how life turns
out. Which brings me to the bottom line that life, in all that it is, seems to
be like a game of Monopoly with payments existing other than money.
I agree that in order to be successful it takes more than just monetary sacrifices; in this reading, he explains how he has to give up his native language just to have success in his English-speaking classes. Everyone comes from different cultures and social norms, so an idea of "success" comes different to all different groups of people. Success is a truly subjective idea, but it has been twisted to be objectively based on money and how much someone has, or how far someone has taken their education. When you say "sometimes we may not even see or notice that we lose something in gaining another", this can go back to my comment on Bella's blog, about how people become so attached to a dream that they lose everything from their life, without realization. Last, your metaphor of life to Monopoly makes success seem personal to all, because it has such a large impact on the lives of Americans. Almost everyone has played once before, so this can be easily related to and understood as success not being traded for those different colors of money, but for other things we may not need as much anymore: supply and demand.
ReplyDelete