Friday, February 21, 1997
CLASS:
Reflections on life experiences reveal occupational
prejudices
Stereotypes are bad enough, but it’s rare that we’re ever really
truthful about them. It’s rare that we ever face these ugly
monsters with honesty and frankness. We don’t relate these with
real people or realize their affects. It’s rare that we are
bombarded with some of the truth behind these.
For this reason, the exercise I participated in last year was
both productive and necessary. Although it did not give us concrete
tools with which to move away from that night, it caused me to
reflect about the issues which came up for a long time. The night
was personally painful for me, and if you listen, you might
understand why.
It was a "sensitivity training" workshop, to teach us how to
deal with the inner-city kids we would be working with, to
understand the stereotypes that we hold, and become more aware of
these. It was hoped that this awareness would make us better able
to relate to each other.
After a short lecture, the facilitators walked around placing
small stickers on our backs. These stickers said a number of
things. They ranged from the mundane "I am a secretary" or "I am a
nurse" placed on a man’s back, to controversial "I am a welfare
mother with four kids by four different men" or "I fathered four
kids by four women." We were told to walk around and tell each
other our prejudicial statements about each topic.
The men in nontraditional fields were called gay. The woman with
the "I am a lesbian" sticker figured hers out when every one called
her a feminist. Our statements and our guesses of our own stickers
revealed what prejudices we held.
I wasn’t told anything particularly cruel. "You must be on
financial aid," "you must be good with plants" and "could you tell
me where I can find flowers for my boyfriend?" It wasn’t anything
mean. But suddenly, I got a sneaky suspicion. I started to feel
sick to my stomach, and I prayed: "Please. Don’t let it be.
Anything but that." We were told to sit down and remove the
stickers.
I peeled it off. It said, "My father is a gardener." We began to
discuss the exercise and the general comments made. We discussed
what these meant and how we felt being honest about
stereotypes.
"Did anyone else have something they wanted to add?" the
moderator said. It felt like time had stopped, and I didn’t want to
say it, but I knew that if I was going to be honest, and if I was
going to feel better that night, I would have to say something. So
I raised my hand, and I showed them my sticker. But what did I want
to say? Simple: "My father IS a gardener." For a moment, everyone
in the room seemed to be as uncomfortable as I was.
At that point I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I broke down
crying. I was asked what I had been told. I said it wasn’t anything
particularly cruel. It didn’t matter what they had said. I knew
what people thought. I know already how people view gardeners and
maintenance men. I know how people look down on cleaning ladies and
manual laborers. No one had to say that out loud.
It wasn’t something I had never thought about before.
I remembered my grammar school. Mr. and Mrs. Betancourt were the
couple who did all the maintenance. Their children went to my
Catholic school, and everybody knew everybody. They announced on
the public announcement system that it was Mr Betancourt’s birthday
that day. Being an affectionate little second-grader, I gave him a
kiss and a hug at recess time. The other little girls were grossed
out. "Oh yuck!" they said. "Gross. He smells bad. He’s dirty," they
yelled.
"So," I shot back. "I kiss my dad every day and he comes home
dirty; he doesn’t smell."
"Yuck, you’re dad smells," they taunted.
"No. No he doesn’t. My dad doesn’t smell bad."
It was that day on the school yard that I learned middle-class
distaste for manual labor. It was that day that I was taught that
smelling bad and being dirty were bad things. In the fourth grade I
asked my dad what he did. For some reason we had been discussing
occupations in school, and while I knew my dad went to "work," I
didn’t know what "work" meant. My parents laughed and said my dad
was a welder. "Oh, a welder. What’s that?" So I knew that my dad
was a welder, and that’s why he came home dirty.
He had always kept gardening on the side for when he was laid
off. With welding, it seemed like he was laid off more often then
he was working. We knew we couldn’t have much, but we had more than
most kids and we went to Catholic school. "Be thankful," my mom
said.
My dad’s main joy was at the end of the day, after 12 hours of
work, to come home to four little girls who fought to be the first
to kiss him, and then later a little boy added to the bunch. He
changed jobs a couple of years back. He began working for the city
as part of the maintenance crew, and this was more steady work.
I didn’t think about my dad’s occupation for a while, content
with the false belief that we were middle class. But
journal-writing for a class, and the irony of a gardener’s daughter
getting a college education, brought these thoughts to the
forefront.
When I began UCLA, it was through the freshman summer program.
Professor Rocco had us keep journals about how political theory and
American politics affected our lives. I remember one day, in
lecture, writing a journal instead of taking notes  writing
in a frenzy and crying as I wrote because I had seen the gardeners
on campus that day. I saw them and they hadn’t noticed me. I
wondered what they thought of me, if they assumed I was middle
class. If they thought that I was assimilating because I was
getting an education. I wondered if they knew that my father was a
gardener. I wondered if they knew that their children could come
here.
Once the topic came up at home. It was after I was walking
around on campus this summer, with my boss. We passed the back side
of Ackerman, and I saw a friend of the family working construction.
I waved hi and said my mom had told me he was working here. He
yelled back that he had never seen me on campus. I waved goodbye
and continued with my boss.
My mom told me later that this friend of the family had told
everyone back home what I had done. He said he was surprised that I
said hello. He said he would’ve understood if I had ignored him. He
was so glad that I had said hello. I told my mom that one of my
student’s fathers worked on that same construction site.
After my revelation to the workshop participants, the people who
had told me their prejudices apologized. There was no reason for
them to do this. I AM on financial aid. My friends, and the Latinos
in the group, said, "I know. I know. My uncle, my father, is too."
No one was as cruel or as vicious as I was to myself.
I went home that night and cried to my roommate Sydjea: "But why
should you cry? He works hard. It’s honest work. He doesn’t steal
from anybody." At that point I was ashamed. Ashamed at myself for
crying even thought I didn’t yet know why I had cried. And I wished
I could be like Sydjea or be like the girl at my high school, who
sat patiently in the truck as her father and her uncles did the
yard work at my high school. I wondered how she could hold her head
so high. I was ashamed at myself, and took that sticker and placed
it on my mortarboard. I wanted to remind myself everyday, to make
myself humble and thankful to have a father who loves me so much
that he would work hard to give me more than I deserve.
I told my roommate about the incident after she saw the sticker.
She says I should’ve been at last year’s Raza Grad. The law student
that was speaking wrote a nice speech. It went along the lines of,
"Come seamstress, and see the design you have woven. Come laborer,
and see what you have built. Come gardener, and see the fruits of
your labors." She said everyone in the audience was crying, and I
know why. Because despite our parents’ fears that we are ashamed of
them, that we look down on them for their lack of education, it is
the students who hope to be worthy of our parents’ sacrifices and
their dreams. We come to this university, and we stand at Raza Grad
as our parents’ American dream. We are their crowning glory. We are
the reason that they sacrificed and they labored.
I would like to think that I’ve lasted at this university, and
that I made it here through my own efforts  that I did this
by myself. But that would be a lie. Although I have worked hard, I
couldn’t have made it here without my parents’ sacrifices, without
their goading. I couldn’t have survived without my parents paying
for my phone bill, giving me money for this month’s rent, and those
frequent $20 bills handed to me on the way out of the car. I cannot
forget that every $50 my dad sends represents his work from
gardening  that $50 is what the white ladies pay my mom to
clean their houses.
I finally figured out why I was crying. As a young girl, I hated
to hear my father call his patrons. To hear his broken English and
his subservient tone. I swore I would never speak to anyone in that
manner. I hate that there are people who haven’t given my dad a
raise in 15 years. I hate that there are dirty rich women who abuse
my mother. I hate that my parents have to put up with this crap for
me. I hate that people look down on my parents for the work that
they doand for their lack of education, when the reason they work
so hard or were denied access to education is because wages are so
low.
I don’t need the sticker anymore. I was never ashamed of my
father. What did hurt was being reminded of the abuse and
disrespect my parents face everyday. It is this which makes me
angry. My father will be respected, or you will have to face my
fury.
If I hadn’t said hello, it should’ve been me that was ashamed.
To think that a few years of education made me better, to look down
on those who have supported me  that would be a reason to be
ashamed.
I wake up and go to bed a gardener’s daughter. I cannot forget
that, and hope I never do. I am proud of my father. I love my
father; he works hard, and he has sacrificed all his life for me.
If I forget these things, then I should be ashamed, and it is I who
am unworthy. As I write this, I fear what my father will think of
me.