Rodriguez is engaging with questions of gender and sexuality in important ways. He notes how Mexican masculinity is linked to silence, rather than to language, and how his love of literature makes him feel disconnected not only from his cultural heritage but from his gender. Rodriguez’s discussion of sexuality is also of note (as is his discussion of the
braceros) because, though he discusses his experience of desire, he makes no mention of the fact that he is gay. (Rodriguez came out ten years after writing
Hunger of Memory in his 1992 book
Days of Obligation.) Rather than specifying his sexual orientation, Rodriguez emphasizes how his first inkling of sexuality was revealed to him through watching his parents, suggesting that family ties have played a more integral role in his life than his discussion has previously allowed. Finally, though he does not go into great depth in his discussion of machismo, his sensitive rendering of some of the key values of Mexican masculinity is another reason that Rodriguez has come to be seen as a canonical Chicano writer.