Too many Tom Tancredos out there

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There are far too many racists and xenophobes in America

As I reach the 50^th anniversary of my arrival in this country I can now make some very poignant observations and tell you about some of my impressions of life in America.

I came here not because I wanted to but as a fourteen year old I had no choice when my parents came to America to an exile of hard work and deprivation.

I have so very often heard from people that I should be grateful to have been allowed to live here, that I should be thankful for the opportunities and the great prosperity that was offered to me as opposed to that which I would have faced if I had not come to this great land of ours. But make no mistake about it, it hasn’t always been easy nor do I thank anybody in particular or even the country because everything I have and accomplished in my life here has been a direct result of my hard toil and the sweat of my brow. Not one person opened any doors for me, not one time did I get a proverbial brake, not once did I experience acquiring anything easy. I found out that indeed there was no free lunch.

All I have today is little but it is mine and it is the result of my endeavor and not anybody else’s; nor is it because America facilitated it in any way shape or form for me to be successful, just the contrary because along the way I met many Tom Tancredos; as a student in Miami I took a test for placement. I was sent back to the 7^th grade even after I had already finished the 8^th and I was also placed in a class with the mentally retarded. When I arrived in California, after one summer of bilingual, intensive remedial English, I started to get nothing but A’s. When my transcripts arrived in California in January it was a scandal. There was a parent teacher conference scheduled, they could not believe that a retarded student could be making straight A’s. They realized then that the school system in Miami was so terribly out of step with the times that if a student couldn’t pass a test in English it wasn’t because of the fact he spoke another language, no, he had to be retarded.

When I hear somebody like Tancredo express this kind of racist rhetoric I get incensed. I can’t help to think of the many times when I yet had to learn to speak English that I heard: “Why can’t you speak English well?” Then I went on to college and I kept hearing: “You have a funny accent, why can’t you speak English properly?”

Eventually I did learn enough and at this time I think that I have a very good command of the language, at least better than most of Tom Tancredo’s Tea Bagger followers. You see, I discovered early on that no matter how well I spoke the English language it was never going to be good enough for these people. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I was accepted as long as I cleaned floors, waited on tables or mowed their lawns. But when I got to aspire for something better as a college graduate had the expectation to do, I met that odious glass ceiling; I met with supervisors, bosses, owners of businesses and even co-workers who thought I had no place in their world and should be back mowing lawns or waiting on tables only because I wasn’t either white enough, didn’t speak English without an accent or just because I was born 90 miles too far south for them.

The first taste of discrimination for me was when I was poised to be Valedictorian of my high school class. I had been getting straight A’s throughout my four years in school. I was informed that I was leading all my classmates in grade point average. I was even preparing my speech to be delivered at graduation. Then I took my finals and as was expected I got perfect scores in all my exams. When I received my report card I saw a “B” as the final grade for English. That knocked me down three spots from first to fourth in my class. I confronted the English teacher and asked him that if I got an A in the final why did he give me a B for the class? He said that in all his twenty odd years of teaching he had never given an A to a student who had an accent. Ironically, the Valedictorian in my class was a boy named Rudy Hix, German born and one who had an accent thicker than mine.

That was just the beginning. My father said: “Wake up and smell the coffee, these people will never accept us for what we are”, he took my high school diploma in his hands and said: “Too bad the paper is not more plyable” I asked him why and he said: “because you can’t wipe your ass with it”. Truer words I have never heard again. I applied to 19 different colleges and universities in California. Never mind a scholarship; never mind my high SAT scores. Not one single institution of higher learning accepted me. I didn’t even get letters of rejection.

I even had a high school sweetheart I had asked to go to the Prom. She came back, very apologetic and told me that her mother had forbidden her to even go out with me because I was Mexican; (which is not the case) and could not go to the Prom with me for that reason.

I ended up going to school in Southern Illinois where they were a little more welcoming of diversity and they even offered me scholarships and financial aid. But I still worked one year after high school just to save money for college; that was a year I lost. But before I left for college, I had a summer job at one of the branches of Columbia Studios on Sunset Blvd. near Fairfax in Los Angeles. I got off work at 7 or 8 and I was waiting for the bus to go home to East Los Angeles to our barrio ghetto. As I was sitting on the bus bench a squad car came screeching to a stop in front of me, two cops got out and one of them knocked me to the ground placing his foot on my neck with my face pressed on the dirt which I was now inhaling and eating. The other cop asked me: “What are you doing over here at this hour, don’t you know that “your kind” is not supposed to be here at this late hour?”

I answered laboriously that I worked across the street, then the cop that had his foot on my neck said: “yeah but we saw you spit on the ground” I suppose that is some serious

violation of some obscure law in Los Angeles but I got a ticket anyhow.

I have learned to love, even worship the principles and ideas that America stands for I consider myself a true patriotic American. Yet when I got out of college I did experience not getting hired for some job after I interviewed being fully qualified or there was that

promotion that never came or the raise in pay I never

received. Not just one time but hundreds of times.

When I hear some of these right wing commentators

like O’Reilly, Limbaugh, Hann

ity, Coulter, Beck and others speak I can’t help but feel the resentment and contempt I have for them and what they stand for. When President Obama took office, during thatswearing in ceremony I found myself with tears in my eyes. I thought that perhaps America had turned the

corner, that we were going to be less racist and xenophobic. I was even encouraged by seeing an openly gay politician like Barney Frank. I once more got my expectations back when I saw Sonia Sotomayor being sworn in as Supreme Court Justice. Today I seriously question those hopes

I had and those brief feelings of emotion.

THE UNDELIVERED

SPEECH

I still have that half written speech I was to deliver at my graduation from high school as Valedictorian; it starts like this: “As I stand here today in front of my graduating class and the parents and friends of my classmates, I can attest to the fact that my accomplishments are not so much the result of my hard work and perseverance. Only in America would a young Cuban refugee who didn’t even speak English four years ago when I embarked on an involuntary exile into a foreign land and culture would he be able to address his graduating class as their Valedictorian. It was because in America it is possible. It is because we celebrate diversity and we as American citizens, which I am not yet one but hope to be soon; believe that hard work and perseverance will reward those and it will do so without taking into consideration the color of their skin, their religion or place of birth.” That speech was never given. I hope that before I die, I can go back to Huntington Park High School and deliver it before a graduating class, perhaps 70 years later.

PHOTO SOURCE: http://askbobrankin.com/youtube-video-police-brutality.jpg