“You should work for history and not for the next election” (French president Macron to German chancellor Angela Merkel)
What the career climbing Puerto Rican female colleague used to say was true, I was going through a terrible time and my historical fear -repressed to a certain extent for over thirty years- had been activated at the time (eighties-nineties) by the Aids crisis that spread its destruction beyond the virus or related illnesses, quite a few friends dying and having to face the realities of the plague, the political/judicial situation/persecution by the State security apparatus of some of my close friends involved in the fight for Puerto Rican independence, and the illness of both of my very old parents, and the continuous harassment by one of my brothers, a homophobic macho type of the worse kind.
She was right: I was afraid; but not of her as she used to claim, brag about, around campus. I knew what she was saying as some “white” colleagues alerted me to it; and they did not do it because they cared for me, but because they wanted her out. But since my job there was to work in a teacher training program on bilingual education, and parallel to it, try to ascertain that there was a serious effort on the part of the College to bring Puerto Ricans into the faculty and also to be alert as to how students were treated, particularly, minority students, I was not going to fall into the trap, to demonstrate that I was not afraid of her -I was simply overwhelmed by fear, punto. I know damn well how certain groups use minorities to divide and conquer.
And in a way, that is how she got there: I made sure she was hired, having to engage in very difficult task that took a lot of political maneuvering and threats since there were very powerful faculty members who did not want her to be appointed). Yet, the moment she arrived, she began her machinations to ascertain her power (divide and conquer) and one of her first acts was to try to make me look like a “coward” that can be manipulated (gay men know a lot about women and men using them and then "adiosito").
And in a way, that is how she got there: I made sure she was hired, having to engage in very difficult task that took a lot of political maneuvering and threats since there were very powerful faculty members who did not want her to be appointed). Yet, the moment she arrived, she began her machinations to ascertain her power (divide and conquer) and one of her first acts was to try to make me look like a “coward” that can be manipulated (gay men know a lot about women and men using them and then "adiosito").
I knew what were my responsibilities and also knew, as I already had written in one of my “In and out of the inferno” poems, “higher, higher in the ranks/ is not what I want”. I did not have any interest whatsoever in becoming anything but an elementary school teacher training future elementary bilingual teachers, and to study, read and enjoy literature as well as pend education practices in pluralistic environements.
Fear and suicidal tendencies have always been with me. Born to alcoholic elderly parents (mother was 44 and father 50 when I was born), in an extremely violent and economically poor environment is not the kind of place where a child will grow self-secured and ready to take over the world. I survived that kind of home environment because my two older sisters took upon themselves to protect me and make sure I got an education. I also learned to put my priorities in order; and challenging another Puerto Rican colleague was not in my agenda, and much less in a place where racism, the liberal type, but racism anyway, was so prevalent. She got ahead, “higher, higher in the ranks”, but a what cost: betraying her own people. Very sad, indeed.
What it is very disturbing is that she knew what she was doing, and while she had benefitted from the support of minority faculty: two other Latino colleagues supported me when I questioned the Dean at the time about the plan not to hire her, and we threatened him with making the case public since they were hiring a white woman who had an average record in academia. Very disturbing indeed, that she decided to use the same tactics that had been used by the system to keep people like her out of it. How can she be defending multiculturalism, inclusion... oh well, maybe she is really the one who is afraid of the “system” or having people around her who reminds her of what she might not want to face. As many of Puerto Ricans like to say when facing pathetic people or situations, "n'dito".
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