Being Poor & Mexican-American in the United States

Growing up Mexican-American in the United States was growing up to be White. I was raised In South Texas, in a predominantly brown town, but let’s be real…the town was run by the minority White folks. So, to say that I fully embraced my culture, my history, would be a lie. I was more White than I should have been. From the time I was born, the society in which my ancestors fought in wars for tried to rid me of my heritage. Forget that my Great-grandfather, grandfather, and father were veterans and saw bloodshed for this country and forget that my ancestors where here long before Texas became Texas. None of that matters when you are growing up brown in America.

Why is that? Why are our White brothers and sisters so scared of allowing us an equal playing field? Stop right there if you think we have always had equality because if you do, you are sadly mistaken.

Let me give you a brief history of my family’s field and you decide if I have had an equal chance at life. Were opportunities there? I’m sure…but were they ripe for the picking? Absolutely not! All four of my grandparents did not make it beyond 6th grade. I am not talking about great great great grandparents. I am literally talking about two generations ago, my own grandparents, growing up in the 1900s in America, South Texas to be specific. They had to drop out of school to help support their families. My grandmothers both worked for White families, some of which partied all weekend and left their filth for one of my grandmother’s, who literally was under age, to clean up when she arrived on Monday mornings.  

My Grandma - Omelia Dunne

My Grandpa - Steve Dunne

My Grandpa Luciano and my Dad

My father was the only one in his family of seven to graduate from college, while my mother, though certified to cut hair, did not earn a college degree—nor did any of her siblings. Out of both sides of my family, only 1 in 10 pursued and obtained higher education. That said, success isn’t always tied to a degree. Many in my family have achieved remarkable success without formal education—but that’s a story for another time.

         (Dad as a young boy)

       

      

             Ramon Garcia (Dad) as he served in Vietnam.

Am I blaming my family’s beginnings on all Whites? Absolutely not. Not by far. We all have a burden to carry and some of the most unbelievably degrading comments have come from people of my own ethnicity.

To be clear, it wasn’t just societal barriers—Hispanic teachers and school staff themselves degraded my father. They told him he had no business going to college, that he should settle for a trade because that’s all he was "good for." This was a man who learned English as a second language, worked after school to support his family, stayed up late studying, fought in the jungles of Vietnam for this country, earned a master’s degree, and is one of the smartest people I know. Yet the very education system meant to uplift him tried to hold him back. That infuriates me to this day.

       (Mom and Dad at Dad’s college graduation ceremony)

Oh no, it didn’t stop there. In the late nineties my sister was told she could not be in an advanced math class and this was by a teacher who was brown. So I am not getting it twisted, we are all to blame…browns and whites. Just so I am clear, my sister did join that math class after my father fought for her. She ended up being a math coach in Austin ISD and is now a principal. Damn, do we have to fight for our education! It shouldn’t be this way. What about those who can’t fight? What about our Abuelitas who couldn’t fight? Our families with different languages? It shouldn’t be this hard to let us even the playing field. And yet, here we are.

Ladies and gentlemen, my ancestors have literally been here since the early 1800s and it took my family almost 200 years for its first representative to obtain a college degree. Do you think that we started on a leveled playing field? I think not.

My family’s journey speaks to the power of one. It started with my father, the first in our family to earn a college degree, and now all four of his children have followed in his footsteps. My youngest sister earned her bachelor’s degree from UT Austin. My middle sister, now a principal, earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from UT Austin. I hold a master’s degree, and my brother achieved a PhD.

But this journey has been anything but easy. We’ve fought to be who we are, navigating our Spanglish roots and Tex-Mex culture while enduring the weight of prejudice. We’ve faced the rolling eyes when Spanish music blares from our cars and the quiet degradation, like when my college roommate in the 1990s asked me to do the cleaning because “that’s what my people do.” Our progress came through struggle—but it’s a struggle we’ve faced with pride, resilience, and determination.

Despite our struggle, the education gap is closing for my family. However, for so many other Latino families the gap has shown no signs of closing and for no fault of their own. They are simply a part of an education system that speaks about diversity and inclusion but in reality is all about exclusion.

The education gap that exists has everything to do with race, has everything to do with poverty, the higher costs to get educated, and has everything to do with bias, including bias in the minority cultures towards one another. We all must do better. We are Americans, no matter the race, the skin color, or economic status. Together we are better.

(Above are my mother and father - high school graduation)

Thank you, Mom & Dad…for never forgetting who you are or where you came from and for working to change the trajectory of life for your family.

Sí se puede!