American Individualism, Identity, and the Cost of the Dream

The Core Tension in American Character

Huckleberry Finn is the closest we have to a national hero — we trust the story of a boy with no home, as restless as the river itself. The genius of America, Richard Rodriguez suggests, is that it permits children to leave home; it permits us to be different from our parents. But the sadness and loneliness of America are equally clear.

There is a tension at the heart of the American character. On the one hand, Americans pride themselves on their individuality. On the other, they seek to conform, to fit in, to become part of the "melting pot" — and yet remain forever lonely.

Individualism as the American Myth

Individualism has been an intrinsic part of the American myth. It is visible in the rugged terrain of a vast country and in the voices of exemplary American thinkers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, who stressed self-reliance and the necessity of being true to oneself. Self-sufficiency, self-determination, and self-efficacy are all components of the narrative of individualism that America has always promoted. The individual, more or less, stands alone. The country is enormous — a kind of jungle. America, it is said, is a land of opportunity. To profit from that opportunity, however, one must be independent, unique, original, self-sufficient, and willing to go it alone.

On the other hand, this ethos produces a pervasive sadness and loneliness, evidenced by the fact that large numbers of Americans seek therapy while others fall into depression. Clinical depression is widespread in this country. For immigrants who come from socially supportive communities and families and are then pressured to Americanize themselves, the American experience can be doubly intimidating and frightening.

This experience is rendered with particular poignancy in Richard Rodriguez's memoir Hunger of Memory, in which he describes his Americanization — his journey from being the child of Mexican immigrants into the wider society around him. The process was a difficult and painful evolution in which he sacrificed nearly everything: his Catholic background, his family roots, the social warmth and cohesion of his community — all in order to become the ideal scholarship student and the "perfect American."

Richard Rodriguez and the Cost of Americanization

America has many dichotomies. One is the fact that it praises individualism while simultaneously applauding altruism — and people do demonstrate a genuine need for social support and community, as evidenced by herd instinct and the persistent pull toward collective life. Another ambiguity is the one Rodriguez himself identifies when he writes:

"Americans like to talk about the importance of family values, but America isn't a country of family values; Mexico is a country of family values. This is a country of people who leave home." (229)

For people who straddle two or more cultures — who come from one world but are compelled to live the American way of life in order to succeed — the result can be a kind of psychological schism and profound inner struggle.

Rodriguez's autobiography details and laments this struggle. His gradual absorption into American society left him increasingly detached from his roots and created ongoing conflict between himself and his parents. He found frustration and agony in trying to bridge the gap between his Mexican origins, and the parents he adored, and the pressure to "make it." His transformation into the model American brought him little but anguish; the dream he had pursued — academic success and intellectual reputation — proved to be largely an illusion.

The echoes of loneliness resound throughout the memoir, from Rodriguez's early childhood efforts to educate his parents and make them more American, to his descriptions of sitting alone in vast library reading rooms grappling with obscure literary topics. The Mexican experience, he writes, was closer to real life and genuine meaning than his vaunted American experience ever managed to be. The Catholic nuns meant well, but he felt they robbed him of his childhood and of communal warmth and belonging.

His parents — whom he had been indirectly taught to look down upon for their "uncouth" manners and superstitious ways — were, he came to recognize as an adult, inspirational figures who were more authentic and worthy of admiration than many of the paragons of academic and corporate American society he would later encounter. His mother, a failed secretary, was exemplary in her diligence, her dedication to her children and family, her loyalty, integrity, and faithfulness. His father demonstrated similar qualities. They may have been simple people, but Rodriguez, as an adult, considered them more worthy and admirable than many of his so-called successful Americans whom school had trained him to emulate.

In the end, literary and academic knowledge meant little to him. He felt he had exchanged a warm and meaningful cradle of roots for something cheap and hollow.

Conclusion: Opportunity and Its Hidden Price

America provides enormous opportunities. It promises immigrants the possibility of starting life anew in an endlessly opportunity-filled country, where children of immigrants can break out of poverty and become paragons of a new society, landing positions in academia and business. Opportunities are endless — but they can only be achieved at a significant personal cost. Many immigrants discover too late that opportunity brings loneliness and rootlessness, as well as the loss of their mother culture.