stified, give his work a nasty, humorless atmosphere. Whatever reasonable or useful arguments he might be making with respect to education, family dynamics, cross-culturalism, bilingualism, or assimilation, his bitter, even hateful attitude toward life, other human beings, and especially himself, seriously undermines those arguments. His search for subjects to envy or deride also blinds him at times to reality itself. For example, referring to his lectures at ghetto high schools, Rodriguez not only portrays those schools as fashion shows, but goes so far as to assume that the students are "free" because of the boldness of their fashions and physical posing (137). Is the author so blinded by his obsession with the material surface, and by his self-centered bitterness, that he is even momentarily unaware of the profound problems of most if not all students in ghetto schools? Or is he so focused on his own pain that he is incapable of acknowledging others' pain?
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