[Discussion] negative side of affirmative action

[Paksoy, Hb]

 <<...OLE_Obj...>>  From the issue dated September 27, 2002 	

 <<...OLE_Obj...>> 	Remembering the Negative Side of Affirmative Action
By LINDA CHAVEZ  I grew up in a working-class home, the daughter of a
Mexican-American house painter, believing that disadvantaged students
deserved a chance at a college education even if their grades and test
scores didn't measure up to the usual admissions standards. When I entered
the University of Colorado in 1965, there were no affirmative-action
programs to assist me, but by the time I was a graduate student at the
University of California in Los Angeles in 1970, such programs had
proliferated. Initially, I thought that affirmative action would extend a
helping hand to those who might not otherwise learn about available
opportunities and might lack the skills to be able to compete for them.  I
would soon learn, however, that affirmative action could be a double-edged
sword, even for its intended beneficiaries. My experiences as a grad student
at UCLA would profoundly influence not just my personal life but the role I
would play in public policy in years to come.  About a week before my
classes at the university were to begin, I received a telegram from the
university asking me to contact the "High Potential Program" immediately. In
addition to the regular affirmative-action program on the campus, UCLA had
set up a special program for young black and brown men coming out of prison,
admitting dozens of felons as students. I was assigned to teach two classes:
a composition class made up of Chicano men in the ex-offender program, and
another class that was essentially a reading discussion group made up of
regular HPP students.  There were eight men in the composition class, most
of whom were a good deal older than I. Their spelling and grammar were
atrocious, and they had great fun at my expense. They took every chance to
embarrass me, and I soon found out that open-ended writing assignments
usually turned into fantasies of what they would like to do to me if they
could get me alone sometime. Not quite knowing how to handle the situation,
I decided to correct the spelling and syntax and return the papers with a
note suggesting the writers ought to learn how to spell the sex acts they
described. I also decided to forgo the short skirts and hip-hugger slacks
then in fashion in favor of more conservative dress, but I often felt
vulnerable when the classroom door closed and I faced the group of sometimes
leering young men.  The students in my reading class were less provocative
but no less challenging to teach. I had students of all races in the class,
including one or two Anglo kids from poor, rural backgrounds; a middle-aged
American Indian couple; and several Mexican-American and black students. The
Indian couple was heartbreaking. They were the most serious and devoted of
any of the students, but they read at a grade-school level. I have often
wondered what happened to them, if they made it through four years at one of
the best colleges in the country, and if so, whether that said more about
the university's indifference to standards than it did about their power to
overcome disadvantages.  The text we used in the class, Mixed Bag: Artifacts
from the Contemporary Culture, was typical of the era: hip, multicultural,
and interdisciplinary. But I soon found that not only were the selections in
the text (everything from Sophocles to Lenny Bruce) way over the heads of
most of the kids, but the topics themselves (race, violence, religion,
family, and death) provoked anger and hostility among the students.
Classroom discussions quickly degenerated into name-calling between groups
of students. With no sense of irony and lots of racial grievances, real and
perceived, most of the students found it impossible to empathize with
characters and situations beyond their own racial experience.  For example,
when one student called me a "honky," the Chicano kids in the class seemed
to think the remark was particularly funny. Many came from the barrios of
East L.A. and viewed me as an outsider. I talked funny -- "like a gabacho,"
as one student pointed out, which meant I spoke standard English without an
accent. I also used my married name, Gersten, and I didn't speak Spanish --
unlike many of my students who were first-and second-generation Americans.
But perhaps their reaction had less to do with me personally than it did
with the shift taking place in the organized Chicano movement, especially in
California, which had become increasingly radicalized as Mexican-American
groups joined the antiwar movement and mixed with violent black groups like
the Black Panthers for national attention.  On August 29, 1970,
Mexican-Americans rioted in East Los Angeles. The riot erupted during the
Chicano Moratorium, a march of more than 20,000 through the streets to
protest U.S. involvement in Vietnam. It began when police responded to
complaints from neighborhood merchants that protesters were stealing from
them. The police wielded clubs and set off tear gas into the crowds gathered
to hear moratorium speakers. They also shot tear gas into a building where
an armed robber had supposedly hidden, and the tear-gas projectile hit a
local TV reporter, Ruben Salazar, in the head, killing him instantly.
Salazar soon became a martyr to many in the Chicano movement who believed
he'd been murdered by the LAPD.  The university's administrators, worried by
the unrest in the Mexican-American community, were anxious to demonstrate
their sensitivity and good will. In response to student demands, they
created courses in Chicano studies in the political-science, history, and
sociology departments. They also established a Chicano library, run by a
graduate student from Chile. Finally, the English department decided it
would offer a sophomore-level "Chicano Literature" course -- but had little
idea about what would be taught or who would teach it.  In 1970 there
weren't enough novels, short stories, poems, or essays published by
Mexican-American authors to fill a syllabus for a 12-week course. Nor was
there anyone on the faculty to teach the course -- especially since MEChA,
the Chicano student association, insisted that all of the new
Chicano-studies courses had to be taught by Mexican-Americans. The English
department approached me, since I was the only Mexican-American in their
Ph.D. program. Despite my total unfamiliarity with the field, I would be
paid as a regular faculty member at the lecturer level -- nearly twice as
much as I earned in the High Potential Program for teaching just half as
many hours. Plus it would give me another teaching credential, which would
make it easier to secure a faculty job once I completed my doctorate.  I
accepted the offer but soon discovered that I had struck no bargain. Nothing
I had encountered in my teaching assignments to that point had prepared me
for the problems I would face in the classroom that spring.  I had no real
idea what I was doing, and there were few academic resources to draw on.
Although a huge body of excellent Latin American literature existed in
English translation, the Chicano students wanted a course devoted
exclusively to works written by Mexican-American authors. I chose two
contemporary novels, City of Night, by John Rechy, and Chicano, by Richard
F. Vasquez. Rechy, whose mother was Mexican, was a talented writer, but only
the first chapter of his memoir touched on his ethnic background. Though
more traditional in its subject matter, Chicano was a second-rate novel in
which the heroes were hard-working Mexicans and the villains, hard-hearted
Anglos. The plot and characters were better suited to an afternoon soap
opera than a college literature class, but it was one of the few novels
published by a Mexican-American author at the time. I also assigned Corky
Gonzales's poem "I Am Joaquin," an epic about a Mexican "Everyman." In
addition, I chose several short stories from a new publication called El
Grito. I supplemented the readings with analysis -- such as there was -- of
Chicano culture, including books written by non-Mexican-American authors.
Despite my efforts to give students an authentic Chicano literary
experience, the class got off to a bad start and quickly went downhill. When
I tried to organize classroom discussions, it became clear that most of the
students hadn't bothered to look at the assignments at all. One group of
students sat sullenly as I lectured or audibly talked to each other as if I
wasn't there. Finally, the ringleader of the dissident group, Richard, spoke
up.  "I don't need to read Chicano literature. I live Chicano literature,"
he said. "And you -- you don't even know how to say 'Chicano,' Mrs.
Gersteeeen," he said, drawing out the last syllable in case anyone in the
class had failed to notice it was a Jewish name.  With that the class
erupted in hoots and hollers, slapping their desks and stomping their feet.
I could feel my face turn crimson. "You may not like the way I pronounce
'Chicano,'" I said, in the nasal tones that characterized my students'
barrio pronunciation, "but at least I know something about Chicano
literature because I've actually read it."  "She got you, man," another of
the boys chimed, drawing appreciative assents from the others.  For the
moment, I'd taken back control of the classroom. But not for long. The
students sensed they could intimidate me, and I felt shaky and frightened,
despite my bravado. A week later, I encountered more trouble when I wrote a
list of reference books on the chalkboard. Among the books was a short work
on the Pachuco dialect, a hybrid Spanish and English slang spoken originally
by "zoot-suiters" in the 1930s, which had become very popular once again
among young Chicanos throughout the Southwest. The book traced the origin of
the dialect to first-generation Mexican immigrants of the Depression era.
Naively, I thought students might actually enjoy learning the etymology of
words like cholo, pocho, ese, even Chicano, which they regularly sprinkled
through their conversation. I was wrong.  The dust from the chalk had barely
settled on the board when Richard jumped up.  "I ain't reading no gabacho
books. They got nothin' to teach me." And with that he turned his back to
me, still standing. One by one, other students stood up, and in almost
drill-like precision, turned on their heels to present a phalanx of backs to
me. Only a half-dozen students remained in their seats, but I decided to try
to teach the class anyway.  "The point of a college education," I lectured,
"is to acquaint ourselves with ideas and people unfamiliar to us. Just
because someone has a different background from you doesn't mean he doesn't
have something important to teach you." I kept my voice low and steady. "The
book is the only thing written on the Pachuco dialect. Maybe someday one of
you will write a better book, but not by refusing to read everything that
has already been written on the subject, no matter who wrote it."  Any hopes
I had of using reason to deflect the students' anger vanished as the
standing students began stamping their feet in unison, creating a clamor
that resounded throughout the building. Within minutes, puzzled professors
were peering through the small window of my classroom door.  "What are you
teaching in here, a flamenco class?" one befuddled man asked me when I went
out to tell them what was going on. As I was explaining that I had a class
protest on my hands, the stomping students began marching out in military
formation, leaving us standing in the hall shaking our heads.  I reported
the incident to the English department but got no sympathy or help. The
message came down loud and clear: "You're on your own. Handle it." At 23
years of age, younger than many of my students and clearly less wise in the
ways of protest politics or the streets, I was ill prepared to manage the
situation. A few of the protesters trickled back into class over the next
few weeks, but most never returned. I began to dread teaching the class,
whose subject matter held no particular interest for me in the first place.
The books, stories, and poems I was using were clearly inferior to anything
I had ever studied in a college classroom, and I thought it was a waste of
everyone's time to create a Chicano literature course when the literary
output didn't even exist.  I managed to finish the class, but with no
enthusiasm. Only one student in the class made any real effort to do the
assigned work. And by the last week, barely a half-dozen kids bothered to
show up. I knew that I was going to have to flunk about half the class,
especially since most of the protesters hadn't bothered to formally drop the
course. I posted notices offering students the opportunity to drop the
class, even though the usual period to do so had elapsed. I gave the High
Potential Program office a list of students who had never shown up for a
test or handed in any papers, warning them that unless the students dropped
the course, they would receive F's, but only a few students took me up on
the offer. I ended up flunking a dozen students. I was surprised that I
received no complaints when grades were posted, but I surmised that many of
the students may have dropped out altogether or had gone home for the summer
without knowing their grades.  When fall came, the HPP students began
drifting back to campus, and with them came more trouble for me.  The
English department had hired a talented young professor from Texas, Ray
Paredes, to teach Chicano literature, so I was back to teaching composition,
a subject I was far more comfortable with. But one morning, I went out to my
car with my 2-year-old son in tow. As we approached the vehicle, I noticed a
swarm of flies hovering around the open window on the driver's side. Picking
my son up in my arms to put him in his car seat, I opened the car door.
"Mommy, somebody pooped in our car," he yelled out in excitement. I pulled
back in horror. Indeed, someone had ripped open the seat on the driver's
side and dumped a hideous liquid mixture of excrement and water in the gash
in the upholstery. Then, within days of the attack on my car, I started
getting threatening phone calls warning me that if I didn't watch out, I'd
find a bomb in my car.  And the harassment didn't stop with my car. I came
home one evening to find that my electricity had been shut off. When I
called to find out what the problem was, the utility company told me that
service had been terminated at my request. Someone posing as me had told the
electric company that I was moving and requested that service be stopped.
Then pizzas started coming -- by the dozens, company after company showing
up at my door day after day until the delivery boys finally wised up to the
pranks.  And when I went to sleep at night, I was often awakened by the
sound of sticks being dragged across my apartment windows. I borrowed a
six-foot-long African spear from a friend who had served in the Peace Corps.
At the first sound of sticks against glass, I raced out of the apartment in
my nightgown, spear in hand, screaming every foul epithet I could think of
as the car sped down the alley. It's a wonder my neighbors didn't have me
arrested or sent off to a mental institution.  I had no idea who was
harassing me. It was hard to imagine what I had done to engender such
hatred, but I was fairly certain it was one of the students I had flunked
the previous spring. I couldn't imagine that any of them would have reacted
the same way toward an Anglo teacher. Their anger toward me was more
visceral. I suppose in their eyes I was a traitor. I had married an Anglo,
adopted Anglo values, and was accepted in the Anglo world, which they
claimed to reject, but which many of them, no doubt, feared would never
accept them.  No one in the English department or the High Potential Program
was interested in helping track down the perpetrators, so I turned to MEChA,
the Chicano student group on campus. Luis Ortiz, a fellow HPP instructor and
native of Mexico, suggested that I approach the MEChA leadership and ask for
their help. Unlike the American-born Chicanos, the Mexican students harbored
fewer racial grievances. They were, on average, better prepared academically
than their American counterparts and less self-conscious about their
ethnicity. Luis got an agreement from the head of MEChA to handle the issue
at the next meeting. I later learned that the message was delivered
unambiguously: "If we find out who's doing this, we're going to beat the
crap out of them." The incidents stopped immediately. I was deeply grateful
for the intervention.  As the end of the quarter approached, I decided that
I did not want to stay in Los Angeles. Having worked on affirmative-action
programs for two and a half years, I knew that I could not continue teaching
in an environment that rewarded ignorance, made students the arbiters of
what would be taught and who would teach it, and was better suited to
political indoctrination than genuine learning. More and more, I felt
alienated from my students, my fellow teachers in the affirmative-action
programs, and the university itself.  I had started out hoping to inspire
underachievers like myself to reach beyond the world they grew up in. For
me, college had changed everything -- it had opened up new vistas for me.
For the first time, I realized that I didn't have to settle for what
opportunities came my way; I could go out and create them for myself. I also
discovered that the harder I worked, the more I could achieve. I wanted my
students to see those same possibilities.  Instead I found myself confronted
with kids who sincerely believed that the world was out to defeat them. They
blamed racism for all their problems and would never consider that their own
behavior might be partly to blame for their failures.  Affirmative action
began with the premise that black students and, later, Mexican-American,
Puerto Rican, and other disadvantaged minorities deserved a helping hand.
Years of officially sanctioned discrimination had created an uneven playing
field in which not everyone had the same opportunity to succeed. But most
affirmative-action programs, like those in place in major colleges and
universities by the early 1970s, tried to level that playing field by
ignoring the huge skills gap that existed between disadvantaged minority
students, on the one hand, and middle-class whites, on the other.  Such
programs were doomed from the start. If anything, they enhanced racial and
ethnic tensions and animosity and reinforced stereotypes. I had witnessed
firsthand the devastating impact those programs had on academic standards,
on race relations, and on the intended beneficiaries as well. The kids came
into school with huge handicaps, but instead of recognizing their academic
deficiencies and trying to do whatever it took to improve them, many of the
affirmative-action students I taught preferred to wallow in self-pity. Their
attitude -- as much as their social, economic, and educational disadvantages
-- would make life difficult and success elusive.  Linda Chavez is president
of the Center for Equal Opportunity. This article is excerpted from An
Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal, to be published
next month by Basic Books. Copyright © 2002 by Linda Chavez.