Ruano

1

Rolando Ruano
English 1010
Trenton Judson
Rhetorical Analyst

Notes of a Native Son

If you were to catch a glance at me you would know right away that I am not a black
man, neither did I live during the 1940s, however as a Hispanic male who arrived to the United
States of America at age seven, I am able to connect with Baldwin and understand to a certain
degree, what he must have experienced in dealing with racist and ignorant people that are
different than yourself. I will not pretend to claim that I experienced the same level of racism
that black people experienced back in those days but I do know how horrible it feels to be
discriminated against. Back in 1987 my parents brought us to the United States of America. My
father brought us to Utah because of the large population of Mormons. Back then it was a rare
sight to see someone with brown hair walking the street or at the supermarket, and if you did see
a Hispanic person, the chances were that you knew that person since there was a small amount of
Spanish congregations scattered throughout the Salt Lake valley and everyone knew each other. I
remember that my father had recently bought a beater blue Chevy truck. The previous owner had
not done a great job at taking care of it so the cab was spotted with latex paint. We proceeded to
park the truck in front of our rented house located on seventh south and seventh west in
downtown Salt Lake City. As I was working on the roof of the car and taking a rag full of paint
thinner to try to remove the white latex paint form the truck, a white man with a long beard
Ruano
2

approached my father and started to yell something to him. My father did not speak any English
and I had only been in the country for about 4 months. This man became more aggravated
because we were not able to understand what he was saying. My brother and I put our limited
English skills together to try to decipher his slurred speech since it was apparent that he was
drunk. When we finally made out what he was saying we understood that he was calling us
stupid Mexicans and saying that we needed to go back to Mexico, where we came from My
father became upset when we translated what this man was saying. We were lucky that my father
kept his cool and only laughed at the ignorant drunkard and asked me to tell him that we were
not from Mexico and that he should carry on and have a good day. Thinking back to that moment
all I can do is pity such a small man. I could have HATED him for going out of his way to try to
insult us. But my father taught me through his actions that it is not worth giving any energy to
ignorant people. The extreme racism against black people in those days is a black eye in the
history of The United States of America and it is sad that there are people out there that are still
ignorant enough to discriminate against any other group of people because of their race, religion
or any other factor that makes them different. James Baldwin lived from 1924-1987. He was a
famous writer who left his legacy through his powerful essays that were centered on racism. He
lived through the height of racism and the civil rights movement. That deeply impacted his style
of writing, In his essay Notes of a Native Son Baldwin presents an effective argument on the
challenges of hatred by using his experiences to appeal to emotions, he uses symbolism to
express complex levels of relationships and his role as a son and a black man living in the 1940s
to establish his credibility.

Ruano
3

Baldwin uses personal experiences with his father and the society he lived in to appeal to
the emotions of his readers. When Baldwin leaves home for about a year before his fathers
death he is forced to face first-hand the realities of racism and hatred. Being discriminated
against helps Baldwin understand his fathers bitterness towards everyone, including his own
children. Baldwin tells us When he died I had been away from home for a little over a year. In
that year I had had time to become aware of the meaning of all my fathers bitter warnings, had
discovered that secret of his proudly pursed lips and rigid carriage: I had discovered the weight
of the white people in the world. I saw that this had been for my ancestors and now would be for
me an awful thing to live with and that the bitterness which had helped to kill my father could
also kill me. Baldwin went to New Jersey to work at the defense plants. There he worked and
lived with southerners, both white and black. Since Baldwin grew up in Harlem he had not
experienced the blatant racism that existed in New Jersey, there people expected him to behave
in a certain way, eat in certain places, and attend social gatherings only in certain black only
establishments. When he went to the same restaurants that the Princeton boys went to, he
expected to be treated equally; however because he was black, service was denied to him and he
was treated very poorly. The same story repeated itself in bars, bowling alleys, diners, placed to
live. Very soon the phrase We dont serve Negroes became a trigger in his mind. Because
Baldwin did not behave like a Negro in Jersey should in those days, hostility seemed to be the
theme of his life at work, and outside of work. Having society hate him because of the color of
his skin was the straw that broke the camels back since Baldwin grew up hating his own father
because of his ill disposition and prideful ways. When Baldwin leaves home his expectations
were to get away from the tensions of a stubborn and hate filled father, but instead he is met with
more of the same thing. Leaving home for some people means freedom and the ability to start
Ruano
4

enjoying life the way that you want. However for Baldwin it meant oppression and disregard for
his persona, he was forced to re-live his bitter childhood. The year in New Jersey unconsciously
makes Baldwin become his father. And makes me as a reader hate his society and question my
relationship with my own father.
Baldwin uses symbolism to express multiple relationships and their meanings. Criticizing
his mother, dreading the birth of his sister into his bitter reality and hoping his father would die
already are symbols of his enmity towards his own life. When Baldwin writes This had always
been her tendency (talking about his mother) and I dont believe that a single one of us arrived in
the world or has since arrive anywhere else, on time. But none of us dawdled so intolerably
about the business of being born as did my baby sister we sometimes amused ourselves during
those endless, stifling weeks, by picturing the baby sitting within in the safe, warm dark, bitterly
regretting the necessity of becoming a part of our chaos and stubbornly putting it off as a long as
possible. I understood her perfectly and congratulated her on showing such a good sense so soon.
Death However, sat as purposefully at my father bedside as life stirred within my mothers
womb and it was harder to understand why he so lingered in that long shadow. It seemed that he
had bent, and for a long time too, all of his energies toward dying. Now death was ready for him
but my father held back. Im sure that Baldwin loved his mother a lot easier than he loved his
father, however he took the time to criticize her in the way she regarded time, and how her
inheritance to him was his habit of miscalculating time therefore arriving late everywhere they
went. This slight on his mother is almost a symbol of the unconscious hostility he had towards
her for bringing him to this world to experience a life full of bitterness and hatred. The birth of
his sister meant that someone else had to live a bitter life, just like his father did, just like his
mother did and just like Baldwin did. He is almost hoping that his sister stays in his mothers
Ruano
5

womb for that duration of her life just so that she does not have to experience the racism that was
so prevalent during the 1940s Im sure Baldwin does not wish death to his little sister, but just
the ability to live a sheltered life in the protection of the dark womb. Something he would have
wished for himself. The death of his father meant release from oppression. His father symbolized
the outcome of his own life if he was to hang on to the same type of enmity towards the white
man, the unjust society and the enmity he held against his own father. Wishing that his father
would just die already is a very difficult thing to understand for me, but putting myself in
Baldwins shoes, I can see that his fathers death meant a certain release from oppression and it
meant that it was one less thing to hate in his life.
Credibility is established by Baldwin with his experiences as a son and as an African-
American living in the 1940s. Baldwin experienced bitterness and hatred as a young boy, that
hatred was directed towards his father. Then he learned to hate white people because of the
hatred that was directed towards him by society in the 1940s this led him to analyze what was
the ultimate price of hatred. He expressed the following: This was his legacy: nothing is ever
escaped. That bleakly memorable morning I hated thee unbelievable streets and the Negroes and
white who had equally made them that way. But I knew that I it was folly, as my father would
have said, this bitterness was folly. It was necessary to hold on to the things that mattered. The
dead man mattered, the new life mattered; blackness and whiteness did not matter; to believe that
they did was to acquiesce in ones own destruction. Hatred, which could destroy so much, never
failed to destroy the man who hated and this was an immutable law. Baldwin was black man
who grew up in a hateful society. From an early age his father emanated hatred towards the white
people, that hatred consumed his father in every aspect of his life. Hatred sifted towards his own
family to the point that his children dreaded the time when he came home. Being a black mans
Ruano
6

son in the 1940s meant that naturally you were at a disadvantage in life because society was
naturally against you. Baldwins experiences with racism and a scarred father make him a
subject matter expert. His reflections about hate make him realize that if he clings on to this
disease he will end up dead like his father, a father who died long before he was buried, a father
that infected many people around him with the disease of hate and bitterness. Now it was
Baldwins turn to make a choice, either let go of his hatred or to give into a gangrenous death.
We read in this essay that Baldwin presents an effective argument on the challenges of
hatred by using his personal experiences to appeal to our emotions; he uses symbolism to express
complex levels of relationships that he has with his father his mother, life and death. He uses his
role as a son and a black man living in the 1940s to establish his credibility in writing this essay.
I never experienced racisms to the level that Baldwin did in his life but I have been a victim of
racism and ignorance on many occasions in my life, this helps me connect with Baldwin on
many levels. Baldwins experiences almost make me angry because I wonder how a society can
be so blind and ignorant to the point of hating someone so superficially. One thing I cannot
connect with him is his relationship with his father because my father is a loving and caring man.
Even though he was not about expressing his love verbally, his actions spoke loudly in
demonstrating his love towards me and my siblings. I am grateful that my father did not teach me
to hate but to love people no matter what evil they represented. This attitude about not holding
on to hatred or grudges makes me free; I am not a slave to a negative feeling that Baldwin tells
us that it will destroy a man. I learned from this essay that racism and hatred can lead us down a
very dark path and that we must not give in to this dark feeling because it will cause us to die a
slow and painful death similar to the death of Baldwins father. People can learn from this essay
that it is not okay to discriminate against anyone, hatred has ripple effect, it does not only affect
Ruano
7

the one person but it can effect generations of people. The hatred that Baldwins father
experienced was passed on to his children, and it becomes a chain effect where many people are
negatively impacted. We need to strive to replace hate with love and tolerance towards our
fellow men and women