Desolation In Mike Rose's Lives On The Boundary

Desolation
Desolation and its effects on students educated in the United States is a recurring theme in Lives on the Boundary by Mike Rose. The reasons he provides varies. Three students that Rose uses for illustrations are Laura, Rose himself and Ken Harvey.
Laura, a Mexican immigrant and student in Rose’s remedial English class, has a completely different frame of reference than California born UCLA students she finds herself in class with. She remembers in detail how her father made a meager living as a “food vendor” in Tijuana. The types of food, the smells and the other items he sold are cannot be forgotten by Laura. She emigrated, with her parents, to the United States at the age of six (Rose 1). These memories keep her connected to Mexico.
I believe that Laura did not want to fully immerse herself in English, feeling that she would betray her Mexican memories and alienate herself from her community. This may have caused the difficulty she was having with English composition. Convinced that she was a “crummy writer”, Laura was petrified of being considered unintelligent (Rose 1). Laura dropped Rose’s class four times. He is recording her fifth attempt (Rose 1). The fear she feels has driven her to despair over her lack of progress. In addition, students who are deficient in the English skills and need to complete written assignments at UCLA are referred to as “bonehead” by some of the professors and considered “marginal” by the college (Rose 2). Students in Laura’s position can sense how their professors feel. They know the labels the college place on them. Each time Laura quits, she reinforces, to herself, that she is a failure. The feeling
The “parable of the talents” were being taught to illustrate how the students in the class should strive to do their “best” in life. Harvey was asked what he thought. Replying, he said, “I just wanna be average.” Harvey’s answer puzzled Rose for many years. Rose finally came to the conclusion that his friend was “gasping for air” from being at “the bottom of the (academic) pond” (Rose 26, 28). If “average” was all Harvey could attain, then he was going to embrace it with all of his might (Rose 29). There also may have been a cry for help in Harvey’s response. Already at the lowest level, his fervent desire was for somebody to help him to rise, if only to the middle. Being “average” was better than drowning on the floor of the scholastic sea. The only direction Harvey could go was up. While being “average” may not seem a worthy goal for many, in his mind it is an enormous