Dangerous
In the time when the story is set, a few political groups appeared that advocated for the immigrants’ rights and hoped to help them through the policies and the laws they were trying to pass. The author notes however that what those people did not understood was just how dangerous the policies they tried to advocate where. This ignorance remains a common motif in the novel until the end and the author notes on numerous times the foolishness of those who tried to advocate for some minority’s rights.
Writing as symbol for reconnecting with one’s past and culture
Even from the prologue, Rodriguez recognizes the power of literature and writing in general. In fact, he even claims that writing is what helped him connect with different cultures and what helped him to reconnect with his past. Thus, writing is used here as a symbol to suggest the idea of reconnecting with one’s past and culture.
Language and intimacy
The motif found in the first chapter is the idea that there is an important connection between language and intimacy. He mentions an instance when his grandmother talked to him shortly before she died but claimed that because the words were intimate to him, that didn’t meant that they have to be the same for someone else. Intimacy is defined by every person in particular and it doesn’t have to mean the same to everybody.
Work even harder
Another motif found in the book is the idea that the adversities Rodriguez faced because he was an immigrant child only made him want even more to become accomplished in an academic sense. The hardship and persecution he endured did not discouraged him, but rather taught him that he has to fight for what he wants in life and for what he believes in.
His choice
Another motif found in the book is the idea that while education and Rodriguez’s desire to learn more alienated him from his family, it was his decision to do so and he was well aware of the consequences he will have to face. In fact, he calls himself a "Scholarship boy’’, a term used to define a child coming from a disadvantaged background but who willingly sacrificed everything for the sake of education.
