| Summary: | One would consider Chicano literary figures Luis J. Rodriguez and Richard Rodriguez to be very different writers and from the opposite political spectrum. But there is common ground, too. For myresearch on Turkish-German and Mexican-American literature in comparison, I visited various authors and activists to tell a story of belonging and participation in contexts of migration. The essay Between Chicano Marxist and Catholic Thought is based on meetings and interviews with the Chicano veteran Luis Rodriguez in Sylmar and the homme de lettres Richard Rodriguez in San Francisco. Luis Rodriguez grew up in a barrio in L.A. where he got involved in gang violence at a very young age. Chicano activism and poetry showed him a way to understand social and racial structures of injustice and helped him to overcome his own patterns of toxic behavior. In contrast, Richard Rodriguez attended a Catholic High School, was able to pursue an academic education and became a sophisticated writer. His views on bilingual education and Affirmative action made him infamous within the intellectual Chicano community.
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