When one retells a history of events or remarks on personal experiences, the ideas and claims are generally formed through memory. In the essays "Achievement of Desire" written by Richard Rodriguez and "States" written by Edward Said, both authors appear to pose the notion of what it means to have experienced something and only be able to relay it through memory. The memories that are shared in the two essays, put a distance between the reader and the experiences of the author because of fundamental differences as individuals but also because of the idea that memories are based on the formulation of personal experiences through an individual's identity. Said and Rodriguez connect their memory and contemporary lives through separations and distances from the people and places that have initiated them to see and feel change.
             Rodriguez and Said address a number of different authoritative figures throughout their texts. Each of these authorities has had a significant impact on the way in which the authors position themselves in relation to how they have spawned memories.
             A generous amount of Rodriguez's essay is generated from his reading of Richard Hoggart's "The Uses of Literacy" in which Hoggart describes what is known as the scholarship boy. Hoggart is an authority for Rodriguez. Rodriguez looked to Hoggart's literature in order to take abstract concepts and personalize it to make his own assertions of his life. For Rodriguez the description of this scholarship boy reflected his ideals as a student who sought to balance a successful academic environment with that of his family life. Rodriguez found a connectedness to Hoggart's scholarship boy when he said, "For the first time I realized that there were other students like me, and so I was able to frame the meaning of my academic success..." (Rodriguez, 654). Hoggart's scholarship boy reminded Rodriguez that ...