Walking the Path: Some Thoughts for Latina and Latino Graduates
La Despedida- May 9, 1998
The University of Texas at San Antonio
Yolanda Chávez Leyva
Behavioral and Cultural Sciences
I am
very honored to be here with you tonight as you, your familias and friends,
fellow graduates, and faculty celebrate your graduation from the University of
Texas at San Antonio. In her poem, "University Avenue," Tejana
poet Pat Mora writes, "We are the first/ of our people to walk this
path." And for many of us, myself included, that is
true. Many of us somos los primeros, the first to graduate from a
university. To many of us "walking this path" of the
university has meant entering an unknown land whose valleys and mountains we
learned to navigate through trial and error, through the support of our
families and friends and through the assistance of professors and
mentors who took us aside to share what they had learned.
Your graduation from UTSA
represents years of hard work, dedication, and sacrifice, on your part and the
part of your families. Tonight we applaud your achievement.
Education has long been a dream in our community, despite the stereotypes and
the political rhetoric which labels us failures. Your graduation today
builds on that dream and on that long history of hope. I am here to tell
you that your achievement, although based on your work and effort, represents
more than an individual accomplishment. It symbolizes another step taken
on a road which our community began building long ago. Tonight I present
two challenges-- one, to look back and reflect on the path which we, as a
people, have walked and the second, to look forward, to glimpse the future, to
imagine what is in the distance.
Let us begin by looking
back and remembering, thanking those who in the face of so many obstacles,
cleared the way for us, laying one stone after another, carefully filling in
the spaces between each one, so that we could walk that path with greater
ease, with fewer stumbles. Understanding our present and our future must
always begin with remembering the past. To quote Chicano writer,
Benjamin Sáenz, "I cling to my culture because it is my memory-- and
what is a poet without memory?" I would paraphrase Sáenz.
What is a community without memory?
In 1910 and 1911, Jovita
Idar and her father, Clemente Idar, investigated the exclusion of Tejano
children from Texas schools. In a series of articles, their newspaper,
La Crónica, documented the ways in which Mexican children were systematically
segregated or in many cases totally excluded from the educational system of
our state. To correct this, the Idar family called on the community to
work together, "en virtud de los lazos de sangre que nos unen,"
by virtue of those ties that bind our community together. Their work,
they wrote, was grounded in notions of justice. In the fall of
1911, they, along with other Tejanos, organized el Primer Congreso Mexicanista,
which called for, among other things, educational equality. Out of
this meeting la Liga Femenil Mexicanista was founded, advocating for the
education and development of Tejana women. For laying these stones on
the path which we have walked, let us thank them.
In the 1930s, we
continued to demand equality. At that time, Tejano children in our city
attended overcrowded schools. Fifty children per classroom was
common. More often than not, the "Mexican" schools were
actually dilapidated wooden buildings with no air conditioning, and little
space for playgrounds. The disparity between the westside schools
and the others was striking. In response to these conditions, over
thirty local organizations gathered in December of 1934 to found la Liga
de Defensa Escolar. The goal of la Liga was to lobby the San Antonio
School District to provide adequate facilities for San Antonio's westside
school children and to educate the community about the rights of our
children. At the same time, Mexicano parents in Dilley, Cotulla, San
Antonio, and Kingsville were founding PTAs, intent on achieving educational
opportunity for their children. For laying these
stones on the path which we have walked, let us thank them.
By the 1940s, our
community had widened the path for us. In 1948, Minerva Delgado, joined
by other parents filed a suit against school districts in Central Texas
for segregating Mexican American children. It was not the first
such court case and it was not to be the last. The court ruled in favor of
Minerva Delgado and the other parents-- segregation of Tejano children
was ruled unconstitutional and illegal. For widening the path which we
have walked, let us thank them.
In the 1950s, Felix Tijerina envisioned a
program which would prepare Tejano children to enter school and the Little
Schools of the 400 were born. Tijerina had been forced to drop out of
school at age nine to work, following the death of his father. At age 13
he moved to Houston but knowing no English, found little opportunity.
Starting as a busboy in a Mexican restaurant, Tijerina eventually became the
owner of a successful chain of restaurants. His dream, the Little
Schools, las Escuelitas, would prepare children to enter first grade by
teaching them 400 important English words and would introduce children
to the school environment. The first teacher of the program was a
seventeen-year-old high school sophomore, Isabel Verver, who had read about
Tijerina's proposal in a magazine and volunteered to teach the first group of
children. She had entered first grade in a segregated school in Texas only a
decade before and the painful memories of entering school and not being
understood remained fresh. The first class was attended by only three
children. She was not discouraged. By the following year, over 400
children were attending nine Escuelitas. For extending the path
which we have walked, let us thank them.
By the 1960s, we had
grown tired of not seeing ourselves, our histories, or our realities
reflected in the schools and high school and college students began demanding
changes. In 1968, hundreds of San Antonio high school students walked out of
school, demanding changes in the curriculum, and the hiring of Mexican
American teachers. And in the 1960s and 1970s we saw the rise of Chicano
studies programs and classes in high schools and colleges all over the
Southwest. And it became more complex. By the 1970s and 1980s,
Mexican American women demanded recognition of our contributions and our
history as Mexicanas and women. Again quoting Chicana poet, Pat Mora,
"We, and all women, need and deserve our past."
For making the path which we have walked more complex, let us thank
them.
The path which we have
walked getting to this place tonight has been long. Each stone along
that path has been laid down for us by those who came before us-- by Jovita
Idar who stood in the doorway of her family's newspaper office, facing down
Texas Rangers who wanted to stop their calls for equality; by la Liga de
Defensa Escolar who demanded properly built schools for children in San Anto's
westside; by the parents who attended PTA meetings when they had
so much else to do; by Felix Tijerina and Isabel Verver who wanted to
help the children because their own childhood pain was so deep; by the Lanier
High School students who walked out of class in the spring of 1968,
protesting inadequate educations; and by the Chicanas who demanded that their
history be told as well.
But the path is not
finished yet. By attending and graduating from the university, you have
continued the work of laying down stones. And when you leave tonight to
begin a new job, or look for a job, or enter graduate school, or pursue
whatever goals you may have, your challenge is to continue that
work. You are the realization of a vision, of a dream, of a
hope that our people would not let die-- no matter the obstacles.
You have what Tejano
Ruben Lozano wrote of in the 1930s-- you have the "weapon
of thinking." How will you use
it? What stones will you lay on the path? How will you ease the
walk for those who come after you? Your younger brothers and
sisters? Your children? Your grandchildren? I leave
you to imagine, to dream, to help create your future and ours.
Yes, tonight is a
Despedida, a leave-taking, an ending, but I am like Olivia Castellano, Chicana
professor and writer. "I am not good at endings; I prefer to
celebrate beginnings." Tonight as we look back to
thank those who eased our path, we also look forward and celebrate a new
beginning. And to go return to where I began, with el Primer Congreso
Mexicanista of 1911: I would like to end with the words of one of the
delegates, Sr. Telésforo Macias. Just as he put forth these
words as a challenge to the Tejanos and Tejanas gathered together one fall day
in 1911, I put them forth to you, as a challenge and an invitation.
A trabajar, pues, con fe.