Richard Rodriguez joins summer construction work to experience the lives of "Los Pobres" (the poor and powerless), but initially finds the workers to be like himself - educated with diverse interests. However, after witnessing Mexican migrant workers, he realizes they truly lack rights and identity, acting as puppets for contractors due to language barriers. Their quiet suffering and physical appearance invoke his sympathy. This autobiographical story powerfully depicts the lives of the poor while advocating for their rights and changing perspectives about working class people from mockery to respect.

1. Los Pobres
-Richard Rodriguez
In this autobiographicalstory, the writer expresses his
own experience as a construction worker. In order to
experience the pain and pleasure of the ‘real work’,
he joins the summer work but he is unable to feel the real
experience of “Los Pobres” i.e. poor and powerless. Only
after seeing the pathetic condition of the Mexican Migrant
workers, he realizes the real condition as well as
exploitation of Los Pobres.
In this autobiographicalstory, thewriter speaks for the
rights of Los Pobres i.e the poor and powerless people.
Although this story is related with the writer himself, there
is a great empathy with the working class people for the
writer himself tried to feel the real experience of the hard
work. Besides, thewriter, in the beginning thought that the
workers were different from what his mother told him
about but later he realized that the real workers were truly
poor and powerless.
During his graduation, the writer was in search of the
summer job and one of his friends suggested him that he
should get a job as a worker. In fact, the writer would like
to experience the suffering of the ‘real work’ because he
would like to show his father that he even had the
experience of it. During his interview with the contractor,
the writer aid that he had the experience of physical labor
though he had never worked physically in his life.

2. Undoubtedly the people have told him that the physical
laborwas beyondhis capacitybuthe enjoyedthe work very
much. Moreover, unlike his expectations, he found the
workers not being ‘Los Pobres’ but being middle class as
well as like himself. He was ever surprise that the workers
were not of similar interest and skills even though they
were daily wage laborer. They had diverse interest and
skills e.g. some of them were abstract painters where as
some others were poet and the writers.
The writer, in the beginning felt that he had got the
experience of the ‘real work’ but later he realized that an
educated person could never feel the real experience of the
Mexican Migrant work as made him realized that they lack
publicidentityremain completelyand theywerethepeople
falling apart. Due to the lack of proper communication and
the language problem they were acting like the puppet in
the command of their contractor. Moreover, they were
unaware of the minimum human rights and consequently
they were victimized rudely. Their quietness was the
indication of how helpless they were in the foreign land.
Their sweating face and the hard harsh body really invited
the sympathy from the writer. He obviously got the answer
which he was searching for from his childhood. He clearly
knew that he could never be the ‘Los Pobres’.
This story is very powerful not only in depicting the
life of the poor and powerless but also in advocating for
their rights. Indirectly, the writer speaks for the poor and
the powerless people and against their exploitation by the

3. employers. Despite being an autobiographical story, this
story is able to generalize the common experience of the
working people. Similarly this story changes the
perspective ofthepeopletowardstheworking class people.
Instead of heretic and mockery, they deserve love and
respect.