The Struggle In Terkel's Real Work

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Terkel’s “Working” documents the struggles of Roberto Acuna and his families hard life working in the produce fields, survival mechanisms, and the ethnicity segregation that they fought morning through night. Constantly living with real work, always wanting to become a first-class citizen and having nothing to fall back on, he gives vivid details of hard-laborers obstacles. Rodriguez’s “Real Work” reflects a mid to upper class man of Mexican descendent. Educated and blessed with his social status, he acquires a labor intensive job which helps him gain self-confidence and a realization of his father’s explanation of “real work”. Despite the fact that these individuals grew up with completely different lives and challenges, there are so many…show more content…
Roberto and his family worked together as one. As they struggled to have food in their bellies, they also struggled with gaining warmth and a roof over their heads. He would go barefoot to school and the anglo kids would laugh at him for eating frijoles and tortillas. Always on the outskirts of town they struggled with staying clean. “Here comes the carnival,” they’d say. They weren’t able to keep themselves clean on their way into town because they had to go by dirt road. Being ostracized, they were shunned by society as nothings and ridiculed. They worked so hard and tried to keep up with school but would be way too tired, they fell asleep in class and would get sent home with notes about being inattentive. This wasn’t their fault. The teachers were unaware of their hardships. In “Real Work”, Richard Rodriguez is a very privileged young man in a highly reputable school called Stanford University in the 1960’s. He was from a Mexican immigrant family that lived in California. He would notice all the rich kids, what they wore, what they looked like, and would notice the girls in his class overlooking him. He also notices the Mexican-American laborers on campus. Although he was uncomfortable with his appearance and physique he still had a conventional sex

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