Enter The Pit: Diary of a Husky Kid II

Image: Durley Park at the bottom left and Haydock Jr. High at the top right. Click on image for a closer look.

As to the main title, this is not a recount of my days as a folk style wrestler as the center of a mat is known as such. But rather it speaks to an arena frequented by middle schoolers of Haydock Jr. High during the 1970s (1). When an insult or challenge arose in the hallways or on the playground between two boys or girls, a pause in the confrontation took place. Rather than fight it out for it to be quickly broken up by teachers and face punishment by the principal, the two foes agreed to meet at the nearby Durley Park to settle a score uninterrupted.

Staying away from trouble was a lesson my old man tried to instill in me. When sirens ended at a car accident or fire near our home on I Street, my dad had us watch from afar when the neighbors walked up close to the scene. But one day I disregarded this teaching when two of my Haydock Jr. High classmates where going to have it out after school at “the pit” of Durley Park. From the throwing down of the gauntlet to the final school bell, the whole school knew of a pending fight. Walking west on Hill Street from campus to the Durley Park pit, each side had an entourage of supporters.

Usually, when I followed my classmates to one of these periodic, yet regular, contests, I safely observed downward from the ridge of “the pit.” I understood that I risked getting into trouble if I got too close. But one day I decided to disregard my dad’s admonishment of staying a distance away from fights when all others looked on closely. As I jostled through the crowd to see the brawl, I pushed back someone who gave me stiff shove. It was Jimmy H. He was a short, skinny kid who had a reputation for being a street tough. I never saw him fight but people feared him because he talked and walked threateningly. You didn’t mess with Jimmy. He also had an older brother that looked meaner, and uglier.

After I pushed Jimmy, he responded with f%#$ you punk before he began to wail his fists. Before his attack, I did what my dad showed his husky, wannabe cholo, Chicano kid. I got into my boxing stance and raised my dukes, one fist slightly in front of the other. Soon we were at where most street fights end up: on the ground. I took advantage of my girth to straddle Jimmy H’s chest while I unremittingly pummeled his face. It was though I was unleashing pent up rage. All of a sudden, from the corner of my right eye I saw a black biscuit shoe headed toward my face before it knocked me off Jimmy H. It was the foot of his older, fouler brother, Michael. Dazed I got up and the fight was over. Maybe Michael understood that if he went for me a possible larger melee would break out—who knows?

Anyway, I was sort of the hero the next week as I heard classmates talk how I stood up to Jimmy H. and won. From then on, I was one of the kids in school that others thought twice about tangling with, except for Jimmy H. Every time we met in the hallway or at the park he’d challenge me by calling me punk as if he won our last and only fight. I never understood this. Never taking my eyes off of him (2), I always said no to his invitation to a rematch.

But what I did from then on was to stay far away as possible from street fights, except when I was backing up one of my friends.

1. I have been told that to this day the pit is the site of similar match ups.
2. My dad also told me to never turn your back on your enemy.

School Segregation: Not Just Black and White

Image: Cesar Chavez, Odessa Newman, Juan Soria

California school districts segregated children of Mexican origins in California for much of the twentieth century. Like in Oxnard, school boards held that this segregation was a de facto (unofficial) manifestation of discriminatory residential developments that instilled covenants within deeds prohibiting the sale of homes to non-whites. But as the appeals process of the Soria v. Oxnard School District case (1971) revealed, the segregation of children of Mexican origins was obsessed upon by school boards in the early twentieth century. A classic film detailing this phenomenon in San Diego, California is the docudrama The Lemon Grove Incident. In this true story, Mexican parents fought against this discrimination in 1931 and won.

School segregation did not just mean separate schooling but also the inferior education of children of Mexican origins within substandard facilities. As a result, unequal opportunity started early in the lives of students of Mexican origins. The legacy of de jure (legislative) school segregation also affected the life chances (i.e., higher education prospects, professional career opportunities, property ownership, well-being, and the inter-generational passing of wealth) not only of those who had been segregated but also their progeny. In fact, student achievement from kindergarten to the university is linked to the household income based on life chances. This is the cycle.

This historical issue is personal for two reasons. First, in 1971 I was a first grader in the Oxnard School District and was bussed to el norte (the Anglo and more middle class part of Chiques) due to the Soria case. At the time, I did not know why my neighborhood friends and I were bussed across town. Classmate who wondered may still not know why they were bussed but I do. And even when I attended an integrated high school, I noticed that about half of my Mexican origins peers either dropped out after their freshman year or took non-college prep courses.

The second reason the educational hamstringing of students of Mexican origins is significant is because of my old man’s stories of living in the segregated city of Santa Paula during the 1940s. This community was, and to a large degree still is, divided by rancher families and agricultural workers, white theater patrons and the Mexican section, white churches and Mexican iglesias. This separation was so mundane that people in communities in and out of Ventura County internalized the mores of the divided societies in which they lived. Growing up, my father would tell me how when he was in high school most Mexican students took shop classes. So he encouraged me to take college prep courses at Oxnard High.

I often wonder how different the life chances of the majority of my extended family members and classmates of Mexican origins would have been if it had not been for the segregation policies in Ventura County. Would more of them be doctors, lawyers, or scientists rather than being chronically ill or ensnared in the criminal justice system for a large part of their lives? Would they have been upper level managers living in solidly middle class communities rather than taking orders and living in neighborhoods with overcrowded and underfunded schools? Would they have discovered cures instead of being victims of industrial petro chemicals?

Read any scholarly study on the demographic character of our nation’s schools and you will discover that the dynamics of segregation are to a greater extent still with us today. And there seems to be no answer to the residential flight from the presence of people of color and their school-aged children.

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The Sunbelt Strategy

What do California State University Professor Rodolfo F. Acuña, Henry David Thoreau, and Abraham Lincoln have in common? Before I tell you, you need to know that the narratives of Acuña (a founder of Chicano Studies and author of the seminal text in this field, Occupied America), Thoreau, Sandra Cisneros, William Shakespeare, and others have been banned from the classrooms of the Tucson Unified School District as part of the state of Arizona’s dismantling of a Mexican American Studies (MAS) program.

The MAS program once taught 1500 students. Its approach of integrating the heritage of Native Americans, Asian Americans, and Mexican Americans increased the graduation rates of students of Mexican origins while preparing them for college.

Tom Horne, Arizona’s former superintendent of public Instruction and now the state’s attorney general, spearheaded the attack on MAS by way of the passage of HB 2281. This campaign was so effective in tapping into the anxieties of Arizonans concerned with the rising presence of people of Mexican origins that a host of Republican politicians jumped on the Republican Sunbelt Strategy. “The Sunbelt Strategy?” you may think.

This is a version of Richard Nixon’s 1968 Southern Strategy refined by his campaign strategist Kevin Phillips. This plan appealed to the predominantly Democratic white electorate of the South disaffected by the civil rights gains of African Americans. This played out in President Nixon’s equivocations on Affirmative Action and school desegregation. The Southern and Sunbelt states of Arizona and Texas being a Red region today illustrates the efficacy of this Machiavellian ploy.

This history helps us understand why Horne, his successor at the office of the superintendent of public instruction, John Huppenthal, and other Arizona Republican pols, including Governor Jan Brewer, have jumped on the band wagons of anti-MAS and anti-immigration. No matter that MAS has been proven to be pedagogically effective and the entrance of immigrants from Mexico has plummeted in recent years (according to the Mexican Migration Project at Princeton and the Pew Hispanic Center).

To justify his canard on MAS, Horne contends that the program promotes the overthrow of the United States government and advocates ethnic solidarity. But a curriculum audit by the Cambium Learning Corporation, paid for by Huppenthal’s office, found that the MAS program did neither.

The audit also recognized how MAS students outperformed their peers not in the program in regards to test scores and graduation. It did this by making learning culturally relevant to students of all backgrounds.

So the real reason why Horne has attacked the MAS program is to create yet another wedge issue to provoke Republican voters to go to the polls.

In the history of the United States, the use of xenophobia by politicians of the likes of Horne and Huppenthal has been politically expedient. In the late 19th century, Denis Kearney, who himself was an Irish immigrant, scapegoated Chinese immigrants for the demise of the economic status of white workingman, among other things such as the lurid notion that they seduced white women with the use of opium.

Successive financial panics and depressions of the 1870s to the 1890s stoked the distress of people. Across the nation politicians of both the Democratic and Republican parties attempted to outdo each other in their anti-Chinese rhetoric, despite the fact that less than 1 percent of the population was Chinese in the US. This hysteria led to the passage of a series of Chinese Exclusion Acts and ultimately the exclusion of all Asian immigration by 1924.

Even before the popular understanding of the Southern Strategy, when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights bill of 1964, it is purported that he stated to his aides that with a stroke of his pen he ostensibly delivered the white electorate of the South to the Republican Party.

Now vast parts of the South, the Midwest, and the Sunbelt states are controlled by the Republican Party by its manipulation of wedge issues around Affirmative Action, bi-lingual education, contraception, gay marriage, immigration, and now Mexican American Studies in Arizona.

So what do Acuña, Thoreau, and Lincoln have in common? All three looked closely at the start of the Mexican American War of 1846-48 and came to the conclusion that it was an invasion of Mexico’s sovereignty to conquer the Southwest. Second to the exploitation of yet another wedge issue for political advantage, perhaps this is exactly the sort of history that Horne and the Arizona Republican party leadership do not want Mexican American Studies students of the Tucson Unified School District to learn.

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Ventura County Star

National Park Service César Chávez Special Resource Study

Image: Oxnard CSO in Oxnard 1958 In 1958 César Chávez returned to Oxnard, California to organize a Community Service Organization chapter in Ventura County. The project was funded by the United Packinghouse Workers of America to solidify and expand its union base in the region. As Chávez conducted his house meeting campaign it be became clear to him that the agricultural industrial complex’s reliance upon the Bracero Program both exploited Mexican guest workers and undermined the status of domestic farm labor. In fact, Oxnard’s Buena Vista Bracero camp, created by the grower sponsored Ventura County Farm Labor Association, was reputedly the largest of its kind in the nation.

The next year the Ventura County CSO based in Oxnard exposed the collusion of federal and state agencies with the agricultural industrial complex in not carrying out the protections and regulations of Public Law 78 that governed the Bracero Program. The Ventura County CSO and the UPWA, for a very brief moment, however, were able to ensure that domestic farm workers were given priority to be employed. This short-lived victory inspired César Chávez to organize a farm workers union after his beloved CSO refused to expand its attention to this area of need. The result ultimately was the creation of the United Farm Workers movement that served as a major voice for not only farm workers but all concerned with the condition of los de abajo.

So if you are interested in making communities in Ventura County recognized National Park Service sites significant to César Chávez legacy and the farm labor movement attend the May 10th, 2011 National Park Service Special Resource Study meeting at the Café on A-Rodolfo F. Acuña Gallery and Cultural Arts Center from 6:30-8:30pm. For more details visit:
http://www.nps.gov/pwro/chavez/mtgschedule.htm

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How I became a Historian

I am periodically asked the questions, “Why did you become a teacher?” or “Why did you choose History as a major?” More fitting queries, however, would ask “How” I decided to become a teacher or focus on the study of History. This is because my decision was pragmatic. I did not have the complete privilege to choose.

Like so many of my Chicano peers, I was not prepared for college out of high school. A big chunk of my gente dropped out (at rates hovering just below or above 50%). I lost contact with many after the ninth grade. For much of my first two years at the community college, I took classes in English and Math that qualified me for transferrable courses to the university. Back then they were openly called remedial classes—I am not sure what they are called now. I was, however, honest with myself about my (in)abilities. So when I received a B grade in Western Civilization I said to myself, “Hey I can do this. I can read and write at a proficient level (I feel). I’ll major in History.”

My parents always encouraged me to go to college after all, even though mom has a Mexican grade school education and dad still wonders how he was granted an A.A. degree. I also knew that getting a university degree would make them happy. It would also buy me time from getting a job. Mom explained the deal as I approached the end of my senior year: “You continue your education or a trabajar!” It’s nice being one of two kids. So I became a History major because I believed it would enable me to survive in academe. After taking a Chicano Studies class at Moorpark College, I also sensed that the study of History could help me understand why very few Chicanas and Chicanos held positions of authority in and out of school.

Along the way I realized that I desired a career that offered significant security from unemployment. Memories of tension in the household when my dad was laid off from his job played a significant role in my decision to become an educator. Growing up, I was not aware of teachers being fired—at least not for carrying out their duties. Sure teachers worked side jobs to supplement their salaries, but they were always employed.

As a History major I also flirted with the notion of becoming a lawyer. Be a teacher or become a lawyer. What else does a History major do? I briefly joined Fresno State’s Chicanos In Law club. But after I received my LSAT score I knew the career of an esquire was not in the cards. “I will teach at the high school,” I said to myself. To enter a teacher credential program at the Cal. State all I needed to do was to pass the CBEST. How hard could that be? Well, it can be difficult if your math skills are not up to speed. I eventually passed the Math segment of the CBEST—only after taking a College Algebra class at Oxnard College as a post-baccalaureate. I felt validated by the world of standardized tests—a mundo that my people do very poorly in, for a host of reasons.

While I was at Fresno State I stopped by the office of a History professor who advised students on the social science waiver program for prospective teachers. He asked me to return as he had a migraine. I never did. After I compared the added course work required to become a social science teacher with that needed for a Masters degree, graduate school was more attractive. And it required no CBEST. I finalized this path as my undergraduate mentor-professor expressed his expectation for me to pursue a Masters. So I did. The life of a history professor appealed to me as I once read a career guidance article that stated that History professors had one the longest life expectancies. In addition to this, in regularly walking past the office of one of my favorite History professors I often saw him in his chair with his legs kicked up on his desk as he read a Chinese language newspaper. That’s when I said to myself, “That’s what I want to do.”

After I graduated with a Masters in History, I returned to Oxnard to search for work. I couldn’t teach because you needed a credential to do so in the K-12 system. So I worked for UPS unloading trailers and loading trucks. This was the most physically demanding work I ever experienced. I also went through a teacher mentorship program at the Ventura County Community College. I shadowed a History professor who taught Western Civilization classes. This experience helped me land my first full-time gig at Cypress College.

During one of my probationary evaluations at Cypress my boss encouraged me to obtain my doctorate. So I applied to the Claremont Graduate School. While I was at Fresno State my mentor spoke highly about its Ph.D. program. Claremont was not terribly far from Buena Park so I applied and was accepted.

To be continued.

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A Chicano Diet Private

There are two kinds of diet privates at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego: those that must lose weight and the others who are required to add more. I was considered a fat body even though I was a California Community College state runner up grappler at the 177 lbs. weight class in 1984. But according to the USMC body mass index, I was a panzón. So the Second Battalion platoon number of my gray recruit sweatshirt was ignominiously spray painted with two red bars marking me a diet private. During chow time the diet privates, fat and skinny bodies, lined up to present their trays to a DI (Drill Instructor) for approval. The fat bodies gave their bread, sweets, and delicious fatty food to the double-ration skinny body privates and they gave us their bland waxed beans, spinach, or corn. Before this, I never cared for vegetables but I came to like them.

Suffering from a sugar withdraw, I hid sugar packets into my cargo pockets and consumed the sucrose in the middle of night. Now I realize how addictive sugar can be. I am glad that I was never caught. If I had, I imagine an outcome similar to the scene in Full Metal Jacket when DI Hartman busted Private Pyle with a jelly doughnut in his footlocker during a pre-turn in inspection.

Ironically, I came to be proud of my diet private status. In my final PFT (Physical Fitness Test) I scored a maximum 300 points by finishing a 3 mile run under 18 minutes, kipping 20 pull-ups, and completing 100 abdominal crunches within 2 minutes. My score, however, was mixed up with that of a private with a lower score. But I knew better than to object. I learned early in the, then, 11 weeks of Marine basic training that anonymity was a virtue.

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Sir, Yes, Sir.

In the summer of 1985, I decided to follow a friend, who followed his brother, into the United States Marine Corps as a reservist. For those who do not know, Marine reservists experience the same basic training (boot camp) as regular, enlisted recruits. The first night of boot camp was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life. After a long day of signing paper work, invasive physical exams, and interminable waiting at MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station) somewhere in the Los Angeles region, I was bused with other recruits to San Diego. Upon arrival at the dead of night, a Drill Instructor (DI) boarded the bus and barked, “YOU ARE NOW AT THE UNITED STATES MARINE CORP RECRUIT DEPOT AT SAN DIEGO. THE FIRST AND LAST WORDS OUT OF YOUR MOUTH WILL BE SIR, YES, SIR. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!”

We instinctively yelled back, “Sir, Yes, Sir.” The DI then yelled at us to get off the bus and stand on yellow foot prints on the ground. A host of other DIs met us where we stood and yelled directly into our faces in rapid fire as we stood on the foot prints just before our hair being completely shaven from our heads. I think the fact that this took place during the late evening made this extremely disorienting. I did not sleep at all that night. I wanted to contact the lawyer I did not have to get me out of the there.

Whenever I get together with fellow Marines, we never fail to exchange endless boot camp stories. For non-Marines click on this link of the movie The Boys in Company C to get a small sense of the greeting Marine recruits receive at Parris Island or San Diego. Viewer discretion advised.

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