Essayist, Journalist to Speak at NMH

MOUNT HERMON, MA—Richard Rodriguez, one of America’s most important essayists, will speak at Northfield Mount Hermon School October 10 at 10:50 am at Memorial Chapel. Because of space limitations, this address is not open to the public, however reporters are welcome to cover Rodriguez’s remarks.

Rodriguez, the son of Mexican immigrant parents, writes about the intersection of his personal life with some of the great vexing issues of America. In 1982, he published an intellectual autobiography, Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez. Widely celebrated and criticized, this book today is read in many American high schools and colleges. A memoir of a “scholarship boy,” Hunger remains controversial for its skepticism regarding bilingual education and affirmative action.

In 1992, Rodriguez published Days of Obligation: An Argument with My Mexican Father, a “philosophical travel book,” concerned with the moral landscape separating “Protestant America” and “Catholic Mexico.” Days of Obligation was a runner-up for a Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction in 1993.

In 2002, Rodriguez has published Brown: The Last Discovery of America. In a series of essays concerned with topics as varied as the cleaning of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, cubism, and Broadway musicals, Rodriguez undermines America’s black and white notion of race and proposes the color brown for understanding the future (and past) of the Americas.

As a journalist, Richard Rodriguez worked for more than two decades for the Pacific News Service in San Francisco; he has also been a contributing editor for Harper’s Magazine and the Sunday “Opinion” section of the Los Angeles Times.

Many Americans probably recognize him from his television appearances on PBS. For more than ten years he has appeared as an essayist on “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer.” His televised essays on American life were honored in 1997 with a George Peabody Award.

In 1993, Richard Rodriguez was given the Frankel Medal (now called “The National Humanities Medal”), the highest honor the federal government gives to recognize work done in the humanities.

For directions, go to www.nmhschool.org or call 413-498-3000.

Contact: Kate Snyder, 413-498-3357 or ksnyder@nmhschool.org.

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