Part 1: Trying to Become White

My mother emigrated from Mexico with her parents around the Mexican Revolution, and my father was born in Valentine, Texas in 1913 soon after his parents had also emigrated from Mexico. I was born in El Paso just across the Rio Grande, learning later I was a Chicano or first-generation Mexican American. The white kids at school were called Anglos, gabachos or gringos by my parents, Nana Cuca, Tía Babe, and her son Louie, who I considered to be my carnal or brother. Some of these white kids called me a dirty Mexican or wetback. Cuca’s house on Piedras Street was a block away from our first rental house in the neighborhood. My parents lived in five rental houses during their lifetimes, all within a block or two from each other. The first rental on Hamilton Avenue backed up directly to an alley behind the house; there was no backyard nor back door. Our front door opened up to an elevated shaky wooden porch with steps that led down to a vacant lot that served as our front yard. The houses on either side of us or the ones directly across the street from us had front and back yards. Our vacant lot was rocky, weedy, and ugly, with a small mound halfway between our house and Hamilton. Its only saving grace was a tree in front of the porch that offered some shade during the hot El Paso summers.

During my early years, I often stayed short periods of time with Cuca, Babe, and Louie, who was five years older than me. Our family house had only one small bedroom for my two sisters, and my parents slept in the main room of the house, which also served as our living room, dining room, and study area. I slept on an old couch in the front porch which had been enclosed to make more room for the family. At Cuca’s house, Louie and I slept together on the couch in her living room during the winter months to keep warm close to a large heater. The couch was not a pull-out, and it was a tight fit for me and Louie. In the summer months, I occasionally slept on a huge bed with Babe and Louie; at least it was a bed, but not one of my own. Babe’s bedroom was in the basement, which was cooler in the summer months. I often sneaked down there and propped myself up on the bed with pillows so I could comfortably read my comic books under a small lamp near the bed.

When I started grade school in the early 1950s, I was a shy Mexican boy who wanted to impress his white teachers and classmates. At a very young age I heard Anglos tell my mother that I was such a good-looking boy because of my fair skin and light-colored hair, and because of my Anglo-like features when I started grade school, I did not experience the discrimination and hatred that my brown-colored friends and classmates encountered. I realized that there were other Mexican kids like me, but because of my fair skin, I was able to blend in more easily with the Anglo kids. I wanted to be more of a white boy than a Mexican boy. My first grade teacher at Rusk School saw my hunger to read and learn, and she took me under her wing. With her encouragement and support I was able to read as well as the best of the white girls and boys in her class after a few months. I refused to speak Spanish at home and at school with my family, friends, and classmates.  My parents continued to speak Spanish but did not force me to respond in Spanish. Cuca teased me constantly about my Spanish when I tried to talk to her. My Mexican neighborhood friends also teased me when I tried to say a few words in Spanish; my accent and phrasing of words were terrible. But I became noticed by the white students in the class as that smart Mexican boy who did not act like the other Mexicans kids.  Some of the white kids began to say hello and talk to me. I thought I was becoming more white than Mexican. I was invited to birthday parties and Saturday activities, which were organized by the parents of the popular white kids. There were also parties that the more affluent Mexican parents held and there were a mix of white and Mexican kids invited to these events. I became ashamed of the stark differences between my family’s financial conditions and those of my Anglo classmates’ parents. This furthered my reluctance to not speak Spanish at home and school, believing that it would somehow ingratiate me more with my white classmates and teachers.

Throughout my years at Rusk Elementary School I was often singled out by my teachers for my accomplishments in the classroom. My role models were kind, white, middle-aged women, and they encouraged me to excel in my studies. As I think back, I never had a teacher who was Hispanic throughout my school years in El Paso, with the exception of my 11th grade chemistry teacher in high school.  Usually, I was the only Mexican boy among the top students in the class. Getting the best grades in the class opened the door for me to become more accepted by the popular white kids. I thought that this acquisition of “whiteness” allowed me to leave my Mexican heritage behind me. It was only later in high school that I realized I was so wrong, and it is that part of my life that I am truly ashamed of. In my attempts to become more popular with white classmates at school, I learned that being an “A” student only got me so far with impressing those white students.  In fact, many of the top white boys in the class, grade-wise, were often socially awkward around the popular kids, and although the terms nerdy or geeky were yet to be used when I was growing up, they epitomized what we think today of these types of students in the 50s. I needed something else to get the attention of the “in crowd.” I saw that some of the more popular white kids were good at playing sports.

Hamilton was unpaved with desert-colored sand and small rocks which often chipped a car’s paint if driven too fast up and down the street. It was paved when I started first grade in 1951, but there were no sidewalks on Hamilton. Our front vacant lot and the street itself served as playgrounds for the neighborhood kids, along with another vacant lot behind the Texaco station, across the street from our house. It was there that I learned to play sandlot baseball and football under Louie’s guidance. After playing, we kids bought those stubby Coke bottles at the station and filled them with Spanish peanuts from a dispenser next to the Coke machine. All for six cents. The mix of sweetness and saltiness was delicious. I played with Louie’s friends who were older than me, and I picked up many tricks on how to become more skilled at baseball than many of my friends and classmates my age.  I became interested in organized baseball, starting as an outfielder in the Little League and short stop in the Pony League. I was not much of a hitter, but I played first string because I was the best fielder on the team and made several outstanding plays each game. I was becoming more noticed by the popular white boys in school.

It was during my time playing baseball on these teams that I became more aware of the world around me. I took a bus to get to practice and to play our regularly scheduled games, usually at night.  Sometimes Louie and Babe attended my games but no one from my family ever came to my games. My parents never went to any of my games, because my father often came home late from work and my mother did not know how to drive. Our uniforms were sponsored by Price’s Creameries and when we won games the owner gave each player a coupon for a free gallon of ice cream. My father then became more interested in what I was doing and took the family out to get the ice cream. My Little League team consisted of kids that had white and Mexican families. Our star pitcher, Jimmy, came from a wealthy family, and his father often came to see Jimmy practice. I played center field and at one of our crucial games to decide if we made the playoffs, I caught a couple of balls against the fence to rob two hitters of home runs when Jimmy was the pitcher.  His father thanked me after the game for helping his son be the winning pitcher.  On the other side of the economic scale, there was another good player, who was much browner than most of the kids on the team and lived in the rougher section of town, Second Ward, in South El Paso. Our coach took some players home who did not have rides. When we approached his home in the barrio I saw where he lived: it was a shack behind a large machine shop with scattered engine motors, large oil barrels, and a very distinct smell of gasoline. He told us in Spanish that he had to be quiet because his father often beat him up if he was awoken from his sleep. I now realize that I was very lucky to have a family where I was loved and taken care of by my parents, sisters, grandmother, aunt, and cousin.

At the end of my fourth-grade year, we moved across the street to our second rental house with two bedrooms, one for my parents and the second for my two sisters. Our street address changed by one number, from 2915 to 2914 Hamilton Street. There were glass French doors that separated my parent’s bedroom from the living room, and my two sisters had a bedroom in the back of the house. It had a larger kitchen than our first home, and there was a back door that opened out to a medium-sized backyard. I got better sleeping arrangements in the living room but slept again on an old couch, next to the front windows that looked out onto a covered porch with honey suckle growing on a flimsy wooden lattice. They gave off a pleasant aroma in the spring and summer when I slept with the windows open.

For the first time, I was not ashamed of our front yard; it had some grass with several bare spots and a large elm tree. We now had a modern bathroom with a small sink and bathtub, with two doors–one leading to my sisters’ bedroom and the other to the kitchen. All of the floors had linoleum, unlike our first home, which had bare, old wooden slats. We also had an evaporative-type air conditioner that was balanced on the side window of the living room. Our first home was unbearably hot in the summer. The alley behind our second house was about 10 yards away from the backyard fence. I was not as scared of this alley in the night as I was of the first one. I was able to play safely in our new backyard, and for the first time, we acquired a mixed breed dog, mostly a dachshund with black and red colors. It was my job to feed Peewee, take him out for walks, and keep the backyard clean by discarding his dog poop.

By the time I reached the sixth grade I was considered one of the more popular kids in the school.  My sixth grade teacher took me aside one day to talk about what the future held for me if I continued to excel in middle school and high school.  She asked if my mother could become the homeroom mother for the class, along with the mother of the other top student in the class who happened to be Anglo. I had made it; my mother as the homeroom mother gave me even more status with the whites in the class. I realized, perhaps for the first time, that making good grades in school was a major steppingstone to my future success in life. Because my mother did not know how to drive (and besides the only vehicle in the family was my father’s beat-up Chevy truck he used for work), she had to take a bus or taxi to bring classroom treats for school holidays and other special occasions at school. My desire to become more “white” was impacting my family; it was a major hardship for my mother to be the homeroom mother.

My time at Rusk School prepared me well for my next journey to junior high. When I started middle school at Bassett Junior High, I was an extroverted and sociable teenager, who mingled easily with my Mexican and Anglo classmates. As in the sixth grade, my middle school teachers signaled me out in the classroom for my academic accomplishments. I knew Mrs. Baird from Rusk, and she continued to show an interest in my progress when she moved to Bassett. She was my 8th grade Civics teacher, and often embarrassed me in front of the class with her praise of my academic excellence.

“Class, please be quiet!  Danny scored a perfect grade on his exam, but he returned it to me with one point taken off for misspelling a word. All of you should be like Danny,” Mrs. Baird told the class.

As I became more popular in the 7th and 8th grades, I tried to mingle with my Anglo classmates by joining one of their clubs—Quo Vadis—to which some of the more affluent Anglo students belonged. I secretly saved money for the initiation dues which was a prerequisite for joining; my parents were not told about my decision. However, the secret came out because part of the initiation fees was for payment of a club jacket. I could not hide the jacket and my mother demanded that I return the jacket and leave the club; she was more concerned that Quo Vadis was a teenage gang (which it wasn’t) and that I would get into trouble. I returned the jacket to the club and was too embarrassed to ask for the return of my money. Although I was friendly with many of my Mexican classmates, several of them warned me that I should not associate with the gringos at school and not become a pocho, a wannabe Anglo. This desire to be more white than Chicano when I was young has haunted for years. But I wanted to be a part of the popular white groups in school. In Texas, football is a big sport in school and those who make the football team have more status. I made the football team in 8th grade, and I saw how this gave me extra attention from the more popular whites in school. I began to walk a fine line between my white and Mexican classmates by trying to please both groups.

Mrs. Baird knew that the class was excited about beginning high school next fall, and she seriously told us that junior high was nothing like high school. She warned us that we will no longer be the elite of the school. Perhaps, I read too much into her perspective about my upcoming high school experience.  A marked transition from 8^th grade to high school was just beginning for me; I became less open with my classmates, and I evolved into a quiet and introspective loner.

  

Part 2: Coming Out

My secret came out when I began high school in the fall of 1959; I could no longer hide my inadequacy in Spanish. As a little boy I refused to speak Spanish at home with my family and at school with my friends and classmates. I wanted to be accepted by the more popular white kids at school; instead, I never became fluent in Spanish and was subsequently mocked, sometimes openly and probably many times behind my back, by both Mexican and white kids. Still, I had some good Mexican friends. Many of my Anglo classmates attended Austin High School and were cordial and somewhat friendly, but I knew that I really did not belong entirely to any one group at school. When I started high school, I tended to stay away from others, but smiled and talked to classmates when approached. I became a loner, but outwardly I seemed to my classmates as a shy boy and one of the smartest kids in class. I focused my time on studying and working after school as a paperboy. My efforts had one positive result: I graduated in the top 2% of the graduating class of 330 in 1963.  Those seven students were four white boys, two white girls, and one poor Mexican boy who had lived in several rental houses by time of graduation. Valedictorians and salutatorians were not chosen in the El Paso school district that year. I really do not care anymore who was number one or two. When I was selected as the Outstanding Alumnus of the school in 2008, I could have asked the principal, but I didn’t.

When I began high school, our family moved to our third house in the summer of 1960 to Nana Carolina’s home on Idalia Avenue, one block directly north of our first rental. She offered to help my father during one of his periods of unemployment. Carolina had a small apartment in the backyard, which backed up to the alley. I am pretty sure my father paid her a small amount of rent money. There were arguments between my parents about this arrangement, which eventually led to another move five years later to our fourth rental house on Hamilton, next door to our first rental house, after I had I completed my first year of pharmacy school at the University of Texas in 1966.

Carolina’s home had a great front yard with grass and a sidewalk separating the house from the street, unlike the other two rentals. A cement walkway led to the front door and a covered porch which provided shade during the day. The living room was carpeted and had a chandelier hanging from the ceiling. There were two large bedrooms for my parents and younger sister, Celia. My older sister, Tina, had escaped El Paso after graduation from high school to live in LA with her newly married husband, Ray. I did not mind that I didn’t have a bed of my own; we had a new sofa in the living room, which was very comfortable for me to sleep in during the winter months. In the warmer months, I slept in the enclosed porch at the back of the house. Although my bed was again an old couch, the back of the house was away from the rest of the family; it was private and quiet, where I often listened to music on a my new, turquoise-colored transistor radio, which was bought from my paper route earnings. Peewee slept next to my couch.

On the first day of classes as I was walking alone down Copia Street to Austin High School, I was approached by an elderly Mexican man who was curious about the school.

“Niño, es una iglesia?” he asked, pointing to AHS. My Spanish was good enough to understand his question about whether the school was a church.

“No, es una escuela,” I replied that it was a school.  Austin High School had a magnificent spire, and it did look like an impressive church. At times, I wished it was a church so that everyone had to be quiet, and I did not have to talk to anyone. Tina and Ray, when they returned from LA, had a garage apartment across the street from the school. On some of those mornings before classes started, I’d stop by and read some old Nancy Drew mysteries lying around their apartment. My first class, fortunately, was P.E., and that made it easier for me to start my long day of classes. My last class was Spanish with the notorious Señorita Brown, a matronly-looking woman who had never married. She was a strict taskmaster, and the class knew not to upset her. Even so, I often asked myself why I took four years of Spanish with her when I had other choices of teachers who were not so obsessive that we students become true lovers of the Spanish language. I guess I was trying to become more Mexican by speaking Spanish like the natives, but I never quite succeeded.

For my first two years of high school, I had an afternoon paper route, which prevented my involvement in after-school activities and clubs. For that reason, I was not inducted into the National Senior Honor Society in my junior year, although I had some of the top grades in my class. For my final two years, I switched to a morning route and became more involved in school activities, such as the Science and Chess Clubs. I was inducted into the National Senior Honor Society in my senior year.  Throughout my high school years as a paperboy, I heard several of my white customers make insulting comments about dirty Mexicans and wetbacks. However, most of my customers were polite and treated me with respect. I became more interested in my Mexican heritage and began to speak more openly of my background. As I grew older and the color of my hair turned darker and my facial features became more Mexican-like, I began to see how Anglos looked at me. I tried to minimize my identity, but in Texas a Chicano cannot hide his Mexican heritage, and to this day I am ashamed of my behavior and actions.

During my high school years, I became an avid supporter of Kennedy over Nixon.  My 9th grade world history teacher, Mrs. Snidow, took an informal poll in our class, asking for a raise of hands for which candidate our parents were supporting. Only three students raised their hands for JFK out of the 35 students in the class. My suspicions were further reinforced that affluent Anglos in a mostly Hispanic city were consistently Republican and most likely had a bias against Mexicans. I believe 1960 was a turning point for me in terms of acceptance of my Mexican culture. I was so proud when El Paso’s first Mexican American Mayor, Raymond Telles, was chosen to be the ambassador to Costa Rica by President Kennedy.

My high school years were not that enjoyable because I did not have that many close friends; and I never dated. I regret the few times when some girls in my classes asked me if I’d escort them to a dance or a prom; I promptly said no without any explanation. I was ashamed that I did not have a car to go out with dates with girls; I never learned to drive until I was in my last year of college.  I used an old bicycle to deliver the newspapers, and I didn’t want any of my classmates see me ride the bike to school.  I did have a kind of a date with one girl from my government class. She was a very attractive Mexican American girl, who asked me to play a set of tennis at a court near her house. I was able to walk up Piedras to the court without taking my dilapidated bike. She was a much better player than me. In my t-shirt, jeans, and old tennis shoes, I looked like a jerk, compared to her cute tennis outfit of a white blouse and skirt. I lost badly because I was looking more at her slender, lovely legs than the tennis ball. Like baseball, always keep your eyes on the ball. I think she liked me, but I never went out with her again. Funny, these are things that might have changed my high school experiences if I had been more assertive in asking her later out on a date. I will never know.

Because of my quietness and aloofness, I believe that some of my teachers were reluctant to interact with me, although I was one of the top students in the school. Most of my teachers probably assumed that I’d go to college and be just as successful as I was in their classes.

There were no Hispanic teachers as role models for me in high school, except perhaps for my chemistry teacher, Miss Lozano. Although I took two years of chemistry with her (which was accomplished by only a few students in the early 1960s), she never spoke to me about college plans or what I wanted to do with my career and life. To this day, I wonder why I never received any encouragement from her.

However, Señorita Brown became my unacknowledged mentor, and she showed me the many wonderful attributes of the Hispanic culture and the beauty of the Spanish language. She awakened my pride in what it meant to be a Mexican in a city where whites dominated politics, the business world, and the educational system, even though the population of El Paso had significantly more people of Mexican heritage than people of an Anglo background. She encouraged me to apply for a summer program between my junior and senior years to represent Austin High School with several students from other high schools in El Paso. This program, called the Crossroads of the Americas, was designed to promote good will between the El Paso high school students and their counterparts in the small town of Rio Florido, located in the southern part of the Mexican state of Chihuahua, about three hundred miles south of the Texas/Mexico border. It had the objective of bringing American and Mexican students to work cooperatively on several projects, including building and painting new desks for the village elementary school (under the supervision of skilled Mexican carpenters) and teaching English to first and second graders. This program gave me the opportunity to practice my Spanish and to meet very engaging and intelligent Mexican students. I returned to her class in the fall of my senior year with more confidence in myself and pride in the culture of Mexico. In my final year, I was elected President of the school’s National Spanish Honor Society chapter.

As the President I worked with Señorita Brown, who served as the faculty sponsor for the chapter, on developing the business agenda and selecting a student’s home for one of the chapter’s meetings each semester. I dreaded that she’d ask if our small home could be used for one of the business meetings.  There was a dirt driveway at the side of the house where my father parked the only family vehicle–a dull blue-colored and slightly dented Chevrolet truck. Next door to our house was the parking lot for the neighborhood grocery store. This meant that the 20 or so students invited to the chapter meeting had no place to park except for the store’s trashy parking lot. Lucky for me two of the more affluent Anglo student’s homes were selected for those chapter meetings. I remember those homes because this was my first time to be inside homes so different from the several houses our family rented throughout my school years. At one of those homes which looked down on houses below from its location higher up a hill, I became so entranced by the view of twinkling lights through the large picture window in the living room that Señorita Brown had to poke me to thank the mother and daughter for allowing us to meet at their beautiful home and for serving us delicious desserts and drinks.  Through her influence, I now enjoy reading literature, history, and nonfiction; in my retirement her inspiration has led me to write stories about growing up in El Paso. She was the most knowledgeable and intellectually stimulating of all my teachers and professors that I had in high school or college. I truly regret never talking to her again after I graduated from high school. Señorita Brown was the hidden gem at Austin High School.

Throughout my school years, I continued to see Babe and Louie. We often went to Jimmy’s Bar to eat; it was about three blocks away from Cuca’s house on Piedras. We liked their burgers and fries, and it had a great jukebox that played many of the top songs of the era. It was there that I was introduced to such pop singers as Patti Paige, Doris Day, Dean Martin, Tennessee Ernie Ford, the McGuire Sisters, and Pat Boone; and then on to rock and roll singers like The Everly Brothers, Bill Haley and His Comets, Fats Domino, Buddy Holly, and of course, the King-Elvis Presley. As I grew older, I became more aware of my Mexican heritage, especially through the songs I heard on the radio. Some popular 50s songs were Tequila and Cerveza with their strong Latin beat. My father laughed at the songs because of their unsubtle attempts to cash in on the Mexican craze at the time. The hit song El Paso was about a doomed love between a wild white cowboy and a beautiful young Mexican girl who just happened to work in a saloon as a barmaid or perhaps a prostitute (of course, called Rosa’s Cantina). Her name was Feleena (Felina), obviously misspelled so its pronunciation was easier to say in English. The name derived from Latin means “cat” in Spanish; it is not a popular name in Mexico. Another hit song was La Bamba by Ritchie Valens, who had to change his Mexican family name, so white girls were more inclined to buy his records. I liked La Bamba because of its lyrics–yo no soy marinero, soy capitán-I am not a sailor, I am the captain. It is a proud Mexican song that does not make fun of Mexicans, and people of all races love the up-beat rhythm and joyful lyrics of the song–arriba y arriba!

It all came to a climax for me when Fritos Corn Chips used the Frito Bandito in its ads in 1967, which openly ridiculed Mexicans as dumb and illiterate. By then I was a pharmacy student at the University of Texas and was experiencing what it was like to be a Mexican on the mostly white campus in Austin. I really liked Fritos when I was in grade school; there was a small grocery store across the street from Rusk, where I bought a small bag of Fritos and soaked them with hot sauce.  The owner charged an extra two or three cents for the sauce, which even then seemed to me to be a rip-off. Pride in my Mexican heritage slowly evolved as I went from grade school to junior high to high school to college.

The year I graduated from Austin High School in 1963, it was recognized as one of the top high schools in the city. Although a sizeable percentage of the students in my high school was Mexican American, the number of Hispanics who were selected for the National Senior Honor Society was few.  The top 10% of the class honored at graduation included only two Mexican American seniors plus me out of the top 33. Whereas several of my white classmates received scholarship assistance to attend college, I received no guidance to apply in advance for financial assistance or scholarship support.  At my high school, there were counselors, but I erroneously thought that students were sent to them for misconduct. I did my own research in the library, and because of my interest in biology and chemistry I chose pharmacy as a profession, which suited my academic skills, and which provided a stable and steady income (I was very aware of the hardships my father experienced as a carpenter, often encountering unemployment several times during his lifetime).

As the only son in the family, there were expectations that I do well in school. My parents knew that education was my path to a better life.  I never thought much about the climate of discrimination and bias that I observed in El Paso while I was growing up. I was taught to ignore what I saw and not make excuses for failing in the classroom. But as I escaped my protected home environment in El Paso, I started thinking more about the racism that I saw in white America. The issue I faced was the conundrum of “assimilation vs. Americanization.” Assimilation is the process by which immigrants and children of immigrants successfully integrate into American society and take on those qualities that some whites identify with good American qualities, namely, the ability to get along with others, to be polite, or “to not rock the boat.” Such immigrants are now worthy to be called American citizens. In contrast, the term Americanization implies a more negative aspect of trying to acquire at all costs those traits or characteristics of successful whites who were born in the United States. In a sense, to become Americanized is to corrupt one’s own identity to be considered successful by white Americans. Why did I believe that growing up in America and competing successfully at educational and professional levels was more important than one’s family heritage? I have grappled with that issue for many years.

I know that many of my Mexican American classmates who embraced their culture proudly have done very well with their careers and lives. That is one aspect of my life that has haunted me for years: that my early acceptance of becoming “Americanized” led me to be ashamed of my background and not stand up for my culture in a way that many of my Mexican American friends did. Some first-generation Mexican Americans whose parents were born in Mexico (as was similar for my parents) are often characterized as wanting their own children to be successful in the US by forcing them to learn English, rather than Spanish. I do not think that is entirely true; many of these early Mexican Americans are proud of their heritage and want their own children to identify with their Mexican culture. I learned that from my family and hope that over the years I have been able to give a more positive image of my Mexican identity to friends and colleagues.

I permanently left El Paso in 1970 to begin graduate school at the University of Kansas and earned a Ph.D. in pharmacology and toxicology. I married a Kansas woman, and we had three daughters who were born in Austin while I was a professor of pharmacy at the University of Texas.  Patti, Anna, Elise, Dani, and I were able to visit my parents who lived in their last and fifth rental house in El Paso. It had a nice small front yard and a back yard with a clothesline. My mother died there in 1982, and my father went to live with Tina and Ray, and he passed away in 1998.