Give audiobooks, support local bookstores! Start gifting
Days of Obligation by Richard Rodriguez
  Send as gift   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account
Illustration of person sitting

Shop small, give big!

With credit bundles, you choose the number of credits and your recipient picks their audiobooks—all in support of local bookstores.

Start gifting
Phone showing make the switch message

Limited-time offer

Get two free audiobooks!

Now’s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new one credit per month membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, we’ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.

Sign up today

Days of Obligation

An Argument with My Mexican Father

$15.26

Retail price: $16.95

Discount: 9%

This title is not eligible for purchase with membership credits. Why?

Narrator Michael Anthony

This audiobook uses AI narration.

We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.

Learn more
Length 8 hours 14 minutes
Language English
  Send as gift   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account

A series of ten essays span the five centuries of history, from Hernan Cortes’s conquest of Mexico to San Francisco's AIDS epidemic.

Richard Rodriguez explores the conflicts of race, religion, and cultural identity for Mexican-Americans across the landscape of his beloved California—as well as the impact this history had on him.

Rodriguez positions Mexico and the United States as moral rivals—Mexico wearing the mask of tragedy and the United States, the mask of comedy. By the end, however, we come to recognize a historical irony: the United States is becoming a culture of tragedy, while Mexico is reveling in youthful optimism as the two nations are trading roles.

Richard Rodriguez was born in 1944 in San Francisco. He received a BA from Stanford University and an MA from Columbia University, was a PhD candidate in English Renaissance at the University of California at Berkeley, and attended the Warburg Institute in London on a Fulbright fellowship. Rodriguez has worked as a teacher, international journalist, and educational consultant.

Michael Anthony is an actor and director with a lengthy resume in the Washington, DC, area.

Illustration of person sitting

Shop small, give big!

With credit bundles, you choose the number of credits and your recipient picks their audiobooks—all in support of local bookstores.

Start gifting
Phone showing make the switch message

Limited-time offer

Get two free audiobooks!

Now’s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new one credit per month membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, we’ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.

Sign up today

Reviews

Days of Obligation looks into America—north and south of the Rio Grande—as penetratingly and eloquently as Camus did when he compared the mental landscapes of France and Algiers.”

“Luminous…[Rodriguez’s] insights, irony and descriptions make the writing richly evocative.”

“The best American essayist as far as I’m concerned…He writes a lonely line of individualism, the grandeur and grief of the American soul.”

Expand reviews
Give audiobooks, support local bookstores! Start gifting