by Robert Coles
In school, when Gordon was twelve, he had written the following composition: “We are the privileged ones; we have been born lucky, and we’ll probably die old and still pretty lucky. We have parents who have plenty of money. They love us, and when we want something they say yes, and they go and get us what we want. That’s being lucky. I wish that others were as privileged as we are. I wish everyone in the world had enough food and a good home. My father says that when you’re poor, you feel like two cents. There are many people in this world who feel that way, even in our country. If I thought I could help a lot of those people out, then I’d feel a lot better. Then I’d really be lucky. Then I’d really be privileged. Right now, the trouble with a lot of my friends, and with me, is that we are so lucky, we don’t even know how lucky we are. I asked my parents if there wasn’t a plan we could discover that would help all the kids all over the world who don’t have the good luck we do. My parents said they wished we could, but they couldn’t think of any plan like that. I can’t think of one, either. I hope one day there will be a plan.”
He did, of course, think of such a plan — the application of marine biology to problems of nutrition. But when Gordon was almost fourteen, he became disillusioned with that idea and inclined to return to his parents’ faith — that political and economic changes might ultimately affect the lives of the poor. He took a new interest in history and in civics, and he asked his mother and father more and more questions about “the government” and how it works. He went with them to the state capital and to Washington, D.C. They visited his congressman and both his senators. He watched the Supreme Court, the Senate, got to see a room in the White House. When he came back he was full of information, but also inclined to wonder even more about his country and how it is run and for whom.
Gordon wrote another composition for his English teacher, and in it he repeated old preoccupations but imbued them with new doubts: “I went to Washington, D.C. I saw a lot of places. I realized that our government has many parts to it. You can’t help thinking how beautiful the buildings are there, but you worry about all the American people who never get to Washington, and don’t care, because all they do care about is getting enough food to eat. My father said that the government supposedly belongs to everyone in the country, but when you come right down to it, a lot of people don’t know how the government works. All over Washington there are lobbyists, and they are the ones who know how the government works.
“I asked our congressman if he thought Thomas Jefferson and James Madison ever dreamed there would be so many lobbyists in Washington, and I didn’t get a good answer. The congressman said: ‘There weren’t any lobbyists then.’ But my father said there probably were, only they didn’t get called by that name. The congressman wasn’t happy to hear my father say that! He said that any citizen has the right to come to the Capital and petition — that’s what a democracy is. We didn’t answer him back, but later my Dad and I laughed: a lot of people don’t have the fare to get to Washington, and no one would pay any attention to them if they did. But if you’ve got influence and money, everyone listens to you. That’s one lesson I learned in Washington — that there are a lot of interesting places to see, and a lot of lobbyists, too.”
Gordon added other comments later on, when talking to his friends. He emphasized the physical beauty of the city, the pleasure he had in riding the Senate railway, and the awesome majesty of the Supreme Court in session. But he kept referring to lobbyists as well. And he wondered what he himself might do, when older, to influence the government. His parents suggested that he could best be of service to his country by choosing an honorable profession and becoming a kind and generous husband, father, neighbor. The boy was not so sure. He talked of writing a letter a day to his congressman and of persuading friends to do likewise. When he read of the Children’s Crusade in a history book he asked his eighth-grade teacher whether she thought such a crusade (on behalf of America’s poor) would work in this country in this century. The answer was no. His parents also said no. By the end of his eighth-grade year the boy had also decided no. He was “into” marine biology again, but keeping an eye on the front page of the newspaper. When he read in a social studies class about the civil rights movement of the 1960s, he remarked in class that it would be “nice” if one day his generation could become involved in such an effort. His teacher agreed; later, his parents did. But none of them, including the boy, could imagine what such a future effort might be like.
A week before he turned fourteen Gordon suddenly became cynical in a school report he had written on Woodrow Wilson’s presidency: “It does not pay to become idealistic. You try hard, but you get misunderstood and destroyed. That is the lesson of Woodrow Wilson’s life.” His teacher thought Gordon “too pessimistic”; his parents told him he would “change his mind” and realize one day “how many chances there always are” for people to express their idealism forcefully and to great effect: “They tell me to cheer up, and they say that I’m only thirteen, or I’m only fourteen, and in a few years I’ll see what they mean. But I hear my parents talk about things, and I know what they believe in their hearts. They say things to me they only half believe! I say things to my friends I only half believe! The teachers say things to us they only half believe! We say things to the teachers we only half believe! My mother used to tell me that you can’t say a lot of things out loud. Now I know what she meant: you don’t even admit to yourself a lot of things. My father says you’ve got to compromise in this world. I used to think he was wrong. I hate to believe it’s true, and I wish it wasn’t true. I wish everyone was more honest, but you can’t be.
“I’m a teenager, my parents keep telling me. I’m supposed to be ‘idealistic’ because I’m a teenager! Then I’ll grow up, and that’ll be the end of my idealism! Then I’ll become ‘practical!’”
After he spoke that last sentence he looked at an old drawing of his, which he had kept on a bulletin board (Figure 63). He drew the picture when he was twelve and first developing a strong interest in the sea, in the life within it. A boat is anchored in the ocean. Divers have gone under water. Some machinery will soon follow them. The sea stretches indefinitely in one direction; in the other is the mainland: people, trees, a wharf, a building or two. A person stands on the ship; he is made big, out of proportion even to the size of the ship, let alone the people on the land, who are huddled together in discrete bunches. The artist knew what he intended — a portrait of the artist as sailor, scientist, explorer, and, not least, man removed from others, privileged to have his own activity, while they cling to each other and do nothing, get nowhere. When he had finished the picture the boy had tersely expressed his sadness: if only others had his opportunities, but they haven’t and won’t.
Two years later Gordon repeats himself, decides he doesn’t want the picture near him anymore. After all, he observes with a smile, the boat must have long since pulled up its anchor and gone someplace else. Nor is there any point in drawing such pictures. He has tired of autobiographical writing. He has come to respect more and more those scientists who withdraw from the world’s distractions, carve out an exceedingly circumscribed domain for themselves and work it to the fullest. He knows one such biologist who claims never to read tie paper, never even to watch the news on television. Why should anyone become acquainted with, agitated by, events over which he or she has utterly no control? It is a question the boy, the youth, asks himself more and more often.
Rich in the Barrio
The girl was named Joan after an Anglo woman who had befriended the baby’s mother. At the time Joan was born her parents lived in a barrio of San Antonio. Their house was small, only two bedrooms. Joan was the third child; she has an older brother and an older sister. Their father now owns a store in the barrio. He also owns a number of houses, some vacant land, and a small office building in which a Chicano doctor, two Chicano lawyers, and a Chicano dentist have offices. Joan’s mother is the daughter of the dentist; she is a tall, dark, qui
te composed woman, known to many as “the silent one.” She measures her words carefully, speaks slowly and quietly. She prefers to talk in English, though her husband will often not oblige; he is comfortable talking Spanish, and besides, he has to speak it all day with his customers. They are the poor of San Antonio, many of them migrant farm workers who have worked their way to the city from the Rio Grande Valley, in hope of bettering themselves, only to find jobs relatively scarce, and those available menial and poor-paying. To such people Joan’s father is an authority, an established figure in the community, a rich and important man, an intermediary with the white world.
When Joan was four her father had a rather large ranch house built for his family on some vacant land he owned. He spared no expense. A year later, when the last of the decorating was done, the last of the important furniture purchased and moved in, Joan was clearly pleased with the result: “My Daddy told us that he was only going to ask us to move once, and so he made the house very big, and he told Mamma that he would have the best that money can buy, and then we would enjoy our life in the new home. Each of us has a room; our parents have the biggest bedroom. They have a huge color television in it; but we can come and sit on their bed and watch. There is another color television in the living room, but Mamma doesn’t want us in there all the time, because the furniture costs a lot of money, and she wants to keep the room looking very nice, for company. My older brother broke a dish in there, and we weren’t allowed back for a long time. Now, we can go in the room — if we ask her first. The kids I play with say we have the nicest house in San Antonio. My father says maybe it’s the nicest in the barrio; he says the Anglos have bigger homes. They have more money than we do. They are the bosses, my father says. His friend, the priest, came over, and he said the same thing, that the Anglos are the bosses. The only Anglos we see are the people downtown; we go shopping with Mamma, and see them.”
A year later Joan was seeing other Anglos — the nuns and lay teachers in a private, parochial school she was sent to. It was about then she began to wish that she could one day become a singer, and appear on television. Joan had a good voice, was taking piano and singing lessons, was described by her father as “ambitious.” Even at six and seven she talked about going to Hollywood or New York, carving out a career for herself — so that she might, on a Saturday night, appear on the Lawrence Welk Show. Her brother was bored by that program, and her father agreed. But Joan had her mother’s support: Lawrence Welk featured attractive young women, who sang “nice songs” and looked “very pretty” on the television screen. They must live, Joan was sure, quite interesting lives. One of her teachers, as a matter of fact, had left Texas for a stay in New York City, and told the class, from time to time, how “different” it was in the East, and especially in New York City.
Joan listened intently, came home and implored her parents to go to New York City on the next vacation. The parents said yes — someday; but not right away. After all, the girl had not really seen much of San Antonio, let alone other Texas cities, like Houston or Dallas. Her father’s younger brother is in Chicago, trying hard to make it on his own, and admittedly not doing too well — but writing proud, stoic letters, full of praise for the city’s tall buildings and fast, cosmopolitan life. All right, Joan would settle for Chicago, for a visit to her uncle, who sounds like a real swinger, a happy-go-lucky man who is not afraid of the Anglo world, but rather seeks to be part of it. If she went to Chicago, she was convinced, she would come home different. She would look different. She would be ready, then, for another trip — to New York City. And she would have so much to tell her teachers at school, she kept reminding her parents — as if to make it easier for them to say yes (an educational trip, after all!) rather than their predictable maybe later.
When she was eight she drew a picture of herself in front of her home (Figure 64). She stood rather stiff (she actually had a rather relaxed, casual carriage), her arms straight down and close to her sides, her feet firmly together. She gave herself thin lips, small eyes, a small nose, and very little, black hair — a flat-top of sorts. She wore the black dress required by the nuns. In back of her loomed, it seemed, her home: in her mind, apparently, as enormous and imposing as it was to other Chicano children of the barrio — “the rich one’s house.” The roof virtually touched the sky. The sun was nearby, but without a face, only rays. As a background Joan supplied other homes of the barrio — cramped, huddled, nondescript, a blur of poverty. On her comparatively spacious lawn she put her beloved black hound dog. The animal had more freedom to roam than the dozens and dozens of people who live in the houses shown. There is a fence around her home, and it is shown in the picture. No one from the cramped, swollen barrio can use that lawn unless invited.
Joan has known for years that she is granting a privilege when she invites a friend over, as she indicated when she commented on her own picture shortly after drawing it: “I have two girl friends, and they love to come here, because we can run all over the lawn, and we have the swings and the slide and the sandbox and the pool. Daddy says he’s going to build a real pool; then we can throw away the plastic one. My friends say they don’t care; they like the pool we have. They joke with me; they say I live in a park! When we drive by the old house, where I was born, I can’t believe that we once lived there. I don’t remember living there. If I had to live there, I guess it was best to spend the first three or four years there, when you’re not doing much anyway. I’ve asked Mamma why we lived there, and she says that I’m talking spoiled, because the old house is a lot nicer than most houses cur people have in San Antonio — or in Chicago. I picture my uncle living in a house like the one we have now, but my mother says I’m all wrong there!
“My Daddy says we moved to our new house because he made the money we needed to buy it. He says money is very important. He says I’d better watch out; if I leave here and go to New York City, when I grow up, I might not be able to make the money I’d need, and then there would be real trouble. He says he’d fly up there and take me home. He thinks my uncle will soon come back from Chicago. Our people don’t like the cold North, the bad winters. My father says we can have all the dreams we want about Chicago and New York, but it’s not in our blood to live there and be happy, the way we are in San Antonio. My mother will agree with him some of the time. She says that we should look around us, right here in San Antonio, and see all the poor people here. This city isn’t so good to our people either.”
She stops, she wonders whether there is anymore to say. She puts the drawing aside. She looks out the window: another hot, humid day. She is glad that her room is air-conditioned, that all the bedrooms are. Her father has talked of air-conditioning the entire house. She remembers those remarks, makes a few of her own about him and her mother and her brother and sister and herself: “We are lucky, I guess. That’s what everyone says. I don’t like to hear my mother and father keep reminding me that I am lucky, but they are right, I know. I wish we lived in New York. I wish I could go see television programs, and take music lessons from the best people. Maybe I’ll never leave San Antonio. When my mother gets angry with me for not cleaning up my room, she tells me that she’s going to send me back to the Rio Grande Valley; I have an uncle there too — well, three uncles, I think. They work on farms. They pick crops. My mother says if I was down there, I’d be doing the same thing already.
“Once she got really mad; my room was a mess, and she told me to clean it up, and I forgot to. She came into her bedroom, and I was watching TV, and she started screaming that I belong down in the Valley. My friend was there with me. She said that when we get older we should both leave our homes and go there, to the Valley. I don’t think we’d like it there. The nuns try to scare us. They tell us in school that we’ll burn in hell if we don’t watch out. That’s what my mother says about the Valley — that it’s hot, and there’s no air conditioning in the houses. Kids go to work at five in the morning to pick the crops, and they come home late, at six or seven at nigh
t, and they’re all worn out. Maybe my friend and I will go there in a year or two. Then we can send postcards home, like my uncle does from Chicago. Who knows — we might end up liking the Valley, and staying there for the rest of our lives!”
It is a passing thought, or speculation: she has no real intention of going down to the Valley nor does her mother plan to send her there, even on a brief, punitive visit. By the time Joan was twelve she had forsaken her New York plans, but very much wanted to go up North, to Chicago. She wanted a career in radio or television. She had been told for years that she had “a good voice”; now she wanted to use it as an announcer or a newscaster, rather than a singer. Joan watched with interest, approval, and a certain envy a woman reporting the news on a local television station. She was Anglo, and Joan had begun to believe that only Anglos could obtain the kind of jobs she had in mind for herself. She had also begun to worry about how she looked. At one point she even talked of becoming a nun — on the theory that nuns don’t have to be beautiful, and she saw herself as unattractive, if not ugly.