Juav's Latino World

Excerpt #1---

Five years passed and I still lived with Uncle Guz and Aunt Tina. Uncle Guz was a hardworking, illiterate,
humble man who provided for Aunt Tina by working in the fields, plowing, planting, and harvesting the crops
for the landlord. He had three other children by his first wife, two boys and one girl. His first wife had died
after a short illness when the children were very young, so Aunt Tina cared for two of his children along with
me. Uncle Guz’s mom, Manuela, cared for the girl. Aunt Tina also cared for her brother, Frank, who had been
left behind when their mother died during childbirth. The other three children were older than I was by at least
twelve years.
Since the family did not own a car, Uncle Guz and I would walk four miles to town to get groceries every
Saturday. Sometimes, friends or neighbors going to town would give us a ride, but most of the time we
walked the whole distance. In the afternoon, we would hitchhike back to the farm with friends who had also
gone for groceries later in the day or evening. I was twelve-years-old when he purchased his first vehicle: an
old truck.

I grew up in a small, two-bedroom, dirt-floor home owned by the landlord. The farm named "El Rancho
Plomo" (The Gray Ranch) was located a few miles East of Carrizo Springs. Water for drinking and bathing
flowed from an outside faucet about twenty feet because the house had no inside plumbing. Chopped wood
from an outside woodpile provided the energy to the wood-burning stove.
To survive the cold winters, Uncle Guz took a large, round #2 tin tub, normally used to wash clothes and filled
it half full of dirt. He would light a fire outside from chopped wood and branches. After the smoke
disappeared and only the red burning coals remained, he brought the coals inside the house to heat the
house.
As I grew up and was able to reason more clearly, I analyzed my feelings and relationships to the people
around me. I felt insecure, confused, and unsure about who really loved me, and to whom I should be loyal. I
felt loved by Aunt Tina but only accepted by Mama Flo. I longed to be with Mama Flo and have her take care
of me too. I wanted desperately to belong to that family, but there did not seem to be a place for me.
Many times, I yearned for the closeness and tenderness of my biological mother and tried to get close to her
hoping to find some answers for my feelings. However, no explanation came, and it left me with a feeling of
unsatisfied emptiness. I wanted the caress of a mother and was jealous of the attention she gave my other
brothers and sisters. I wanted to tell her that ‘I was a good boy,’ and I would obey her wishes and do whatever
chores she wanted me to do, if she would only take me back. I felt somehow, that her rejection was my fault. I
felt given away, discarded, and left behind, but I did not know what to do to correct ‘my mistake.’ Life can be
very unfair for a ten-year old boy trying to understand its complexities.
As the years passed, I accepted my role with Aunt Tina and reached the conclusion that I would never be part
of my ‘real’ family. Acceptance of this fact also produced an emotional change in me toward Mama Flo.
Instead of a strong mother-son relationship, there developed a cold, distant, void, more like a distant relative.
My true family was Aunt Tina and Uncle Guz, so I called Aunt Tina, "mom," and Mama, Flo; I called "Aunt."

Excerpt 2--

The year was so bad that we endured a flood in the San Marcos area. The Flood of 1970 flooded most homes
and apartments bordering the San Marcos River. This type of event occurs once or twice in a century, but it
happened that year much to our chagrin. We rented an apartment for student housing from the SWT
University called the Riverside Apartments because they were located adjacent to the San Marcos River.
During the night of February 19, 1970, it started raining and by the afternoon of the following day, 15 inches of
rain had fallen, and still raining. The volume of water was too great for the river to contain, and it started
overflowing its banks the next day.
I recall coming from class to the apartment in waist-deep water, and the water level was still rising. I half-walk
half-swam to the apartment and was glad to find both Poli and Billy safe and dry. My nice 1969 Buick LeSabre
had eight inches of water inside, and the floor mats were floating. While I was watching the river crest from the
door of the apartment door, I could see logs, debris, and lawns chairs swept away by the current. All of a
sudden, I saw a five-year old boy from the adjacent apartments swept by the current toward the river. Without
thinking, I waded and swam against the current to the screaming boy and grabbed him by the collar. I noticed
that the boy had not swallowed water and started to bring him back with an embrace to the neck. I was
bringing the boy back to our apartment when I saw his mother, grasping a handful of books and raising them
above her head so they would not get wet. She was screaming for help and yelling the child’s name. I did not
see any sign of a father and assumed that the father was not living with them or was away on business.
I soon realized that the boy’s mother had to choose between saving her books or saving her boy and she had
chosen the books. What a choice. Material belongings elevated to a higher priority than a human life. Some
people do crazy, unimaginable things when they are in highly stressful situations. I could not understand how
a mother could behave like this, but I was not one to judge. I swam to her, gave her the young boy and never
saw her or the boy again.

Excerpt #3--

Many, maybe all, Spanish-speaking children in their early school years, think in their native language,
Spanish, translate the words in their brain to English, and then react to the command or answer the proposed
question. This gives the observers a false indication that the child is slow to learn, does not have the capacity
to learn, or is simply lazy. The student will have great difficulty following a lecture or discussion, and
assimilating all of the information when translation of the language is occurring simultaneously. The result is
that the Spanish-speaking child is always one or two sentences behind the lecture and missing the current
discussion. Work assignments, commands, and instructions are sometimes lost because the student is not
translating and deciphering fast enough.
The teacher may interpret the slow response as the child having a very low capacity to learn because he
consistently misses the instructions, and she has to repeat them again for him. The teacher becomes
frustrated, but the reality is that the student is even more frustrated because he is lost and confused and does
not understand why. The teacher has to allot extra time for individual instructions and explanations at the
expense of the rest of the students in her class. The Spanish-speaking student is frustrated because he missed
some of the instructions and discussion and feels inferior. The shy student will feel embarrassed and do his
best, but his best will most likely result in a low score. Because the student feels embarrassed, he most likely
will not ask for a repeat of the instructions in order to avoid the jeers of his classmates. The result is that he
continues to do poorly.
Once these Hispanic students fall behind in their grades and miss promotions, they feel embarrassed because
they are older than the rest of their classmates, and they feel and act as if indeed they are mediocre and
inferior. A few become the ‘class clowns’ to divert attention away from their inferiority complex. Those
students who are repeaters become satisfied with occupying the lower rankings in class and making the
minimal grades to advance to the next grade. Their scores and performance reinforce the false assumptions
and accusations that Hispanic kids are mediocre, and the student believes them. If they are sixteen or older,
some may drop out of school and get a menial job. In the early 1950’s, the Hispanic student dropout rate was
greater than eighty per cent. What a waste of talent.