bilingual education and affirmative action. Some Mexican Americans called him pocho, Americanized Mexican, accusing him of betraying himself and his people. Others called him a "coconut," brown on the outside, but white on the inside. He calls himself "a comic victim of two cultures." Rodriguez's most recent book, Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography (2013), explores the important symbolism of the desert in Judaism, Islam and Christianity. In an interview before the book came out, Rodriguez reported that he was "interested in the fact that three great monotheistic religions were experienced within this ecology." A sample of the project appeared in Harper's Magazine (January 2008). In this essay, "The God of the Desert: Jerusalem and the Ecology of Monotheism," Rodriguez portrays the desert as a paradoxical temple, its emptiness the requisite for God's elusive presence. Personal life Rodriguez is gay. He came out in his book of essays Days of Obligation. Bibliography "Late Victorians" 1990. Harpers Magazine, October 1990 References Further reading America, May 22, 1982, pp. 403–404; September 23, 1995, p. 8. The Americas, fall-winter, 1988, pp. 75–90. American Scholar, spring, 1983, pp. 278–285, winter, 1994, p. 145. Booklist, March 1, 2002, Bill Ott, review of Brown: The Last Discovery of America, p. 1184. Christian Science Monitor Monthly, March 12, 1982, pp. B1, B3. Commentary, July 1982, pp. 82–84. ', fall, 1985, pp. 25–34. Melus, spring, 1987, pp. 3–15. The New York Times Book Review, November 22, 1992, p. 42; April 7, 2002, Anthony Walton, "Greater than All the Parts, " p. 7. Reason, August–September 1994, p. 35. Time, January 25, 1993, p. 70. Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), December 13, 1992, p. 1. The Washington Post Book World, November 15, 1992, p. 3.* Pérez Firmat, Gustavo. Tongue Ties: Logo-Eroticism in Anglo-Hispanic Literature. Palgrave, 2003. External links Profile at Perspectives in American Literature Essays at NewsHour Online (PBS) Jo Scott-Coe (Winter 2008). American Paradoxes. Narrative Magazine 1944 births Living people Academics of the Warburg Institute Alumni of the Warburg Institute American memoirists American writers of Mexican descent Columbia University alumni Emmy Award winners American gay writers Harper's Magazine people Hispanic and Latino American journalists LGBT Hispanic and Latino American people American LGBT journalists Gay memoirists LGBT people from California National Humanities Medal recipients Peabody Award winners Stanford University alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni Writers from Sacramento, California Writers from San Francisco Fulbright alumni