I heard a discussion on NPR, in which they were arguing whether or not to let more brown people go to universities.
The argument itself is insulting. Not taking race into account in the application process simmers with racism. The message is: keep everything equal across the board. Whites, Asians (who are the predominant population in colleges), African Americans, Latinos, just ignore their cultures. If the non-white folk have what you need to get in, welcome. But if you don’t, you’re out.
Because if you don’t have that beloved 4.0 (or above) grade point average, you’re just dragging down the universities.
In high school I averaged a C, sometimes a B-. I got into a small Catholic college because I wanted to be a priest. The college had a seminary inside. That’s the only thing that got me in: the beloved Church’s desperation to have more unmarried clerics in their crew.
Two years later I left the seminary (yeah, over a woman). I most students who need bucks to finish, I got desperate. Dad was an Appalachian coal miner, fifth-grade education. Mamá an immigrant from El Salvador and a secretary. Not much cash there. But they pitched in.
At the University of Iowa I checked in with the student aid office. The fellow looked up that gobble-di-gook name of mine and said, “May I ask, are you Latino?” “Yes,” I said. “Well,” he said, you know we have scholarships for minorities. I think we can get you around fifteen hundred.”
Fifteen hundred for the rest of my time in college (two years were left me). But man I milked that money for all it was worth. I worked on my grades. There was something empowering about Iowa’s gift. It sparked off in me the recognition that most of my life I had ignored my Latino side (Why? Shame? Living in a white world? Hell I don’t know). That money–the only money I’ve made off of my culture–propelled me into a deeper commitment to my studies.
And here’s when you have to boast in order to prove an anecdotal point: I am the first halfbreed-pocho college grad from both my working-class cultures, due to the scholarship, Dad’s ass-busting risks going down a shaft every day, and Mamá’s scraping under the sofa for change. My ninth book was released this past week. I’ve told stories on NPR and now do commentary for PBS. I’ve made a movie. I hold an endowed chair in writing at Mount St. Mary’s College in L.A.
I didn’t do this all on my own. Another thing about Latinos: most of us recognize that we don’t live in a bubble. We may be individuals, but we live in a collective of support: comunidad. Familia. That may sound trite. But I tell you, it’s real.
Most working class “minorities” (we’re slowly becoming the majority. BOO!) don’t have much access to cash. But we’ve got access to our roots. And if a university decides to allow a little off-white skin color in, taking the chance that someone in our reservoir of half-educated bilingual East-LA vato-tongued youth will rise up as a leader, artist, scientist, then that school’s all right by me. Because it’s stripping away at racism.
Hey: maybe that’s the real reason why the Tea Party ilk want to sieve the brown folk from the colleges. They’re afraid that more of us will get endowed chairs & write books & give our opinions over national radio. God knows what will happen to the country if that happens.
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