In His Own Voice: Dr. Eugene Garcia Program Transcript NARRATOR: In this third program about changing challenges into opportunities,
Dr. Eugene Garcia recalls his youth and life lessons he learned. Listen closely as Dr. Garcia explains what he has learned with regard to the power of respect in people’s lives and movingly urges all early childhood professionals to consider the effects of respect in their daily interactions.
DR. EUGENE GARCIA: Well, first of all, I have to say that I think diversity is a very interesting topic and the United States is clearly becoming more diverse, but I wanna start with each one of us individually. We’re all diverse individually. We walk in many worlds. We wear many faces. Shakespeare said, you know, we’re just actors on a stage, different stages, different plays, we change ourselves, and that’s what we are. So there is as much diversity within us as there is across us, okay? So diversity is just part of what we are and what we all are. So we shouldn’t fear it.
DR. EUGENE GARCIA: In my case, I always like to say a part of the context for me delivering a text, what’s good early childhood educational practices, part of the context really comes with, as I approach that topic, comes with me. I’m introduced as, you know, Eugene E. Garcia. I’m a professor and I profess and I do what professors do. I write books. I do research. I’m proud of that, you know, I’ve got–I’m okay with that in myself. However, there’s another side. I’m for diverse, so the other side, I have another name and most folks know me by Gene. And so even though I was given the name, Eugene–by the way, that’s not a Hispanic name. That’s a Greek name. And my sister, Cecilia, baptized me, so she got to give me the name. She got the privilege. If you baptize someone in our family, you get the privilege of giving the name. So she came home to Lorenzo and Juanita and Tiburcio and Avel and Federico and Ciprianita and said here’s the newest one, Eugene. How do you get that Greek name? Not only that, but that’s not even a saint’s name. So, you know, in my family, it’s also usually your saint that you name the child after. She just liked the name. So it’s Eugene.
DR. EUGENE GARCIA: So if you read my books or whatever, it’s gonna be
Eugene. But at home, everybody calls me Gene. I have two daughters. I have
two grandkids. I have a wife and I also have another place. When I ran for school board–yes, I ran for school board. Gene–I didn’t say Eugene. I said Gene, and it was that experience also that led me to Washington. During the Clinton administration, I was the assistant secretary of education. And I went to Washington, not because I wanted to go to Washington to do more research, but because the opportunity to go to Washington, as my daughter informed me, because I didn’t think I wanted to go. I didn’t think a professor should go to Washington. She said, “Dad, you’re always complaining. Why don’t you go do something about it?” And I think that’s the part of Gene–is the ability to understand that it’s not just research, that there are a lot of things that complicate
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the world and there are a lot of people making decisions about kids’ lives, and there are opportunities or there are absence of opportunities, and it’s not all based on research. So you’re gonna hear Gene in this discussion. You just gotta hear it. You have to understand it.
DR. EUGENE GARCIA: I learned Spanish as my primary language. I did not learn English until very close to when I went to school. I learned a little bit at home because of my brothers and sisters, so I was “bilingual” by the time I went to school. You know, you’ve got to remember I grew up in the Southwest. I grew up in a family with Juanita and Lorenzo and Tiburcio and Avel, Federico, 10 of us, 10 of us, okay, and our family out in the southwest in the Four Corners area. By the way, my generation or our family had been in that place for many generations. At one time, somebody told me, “Well, you ought to go back to Mexico.” I said, “Why? I don’t have any relatives in Mexico. I’ve never been to Mexico.” I don’t understand that because that part of the southwest had been Spanish speaking. In fact, the first schools in the west we’re taught in Spanish. Even in California, weren’t taught in English. We’re taught in Spanish. It’s true. New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, they were taught in Spanish. So Spanish was the language of that land–had been for generations. And I was a product of that.
DR. EUGENE GARCIA: Now, we were quite poor. We were migrant. We worked the fields, and in that family, because my mother honestly couldn’t pronounce Eugene. If you’re a native Spanish speaker, it’s–Eugene is hard. It comes out Jugene. So she started calling me Gino, which is an Italian nickname, so Gino, Federico, Tiburcio, and it was me, Gino, okay? And that family, that place where I grew up taught me so much. Now, I’ve studied at some good places. I’ve studied at Harvard. I’ve taught at Berkeley. I’ve been at some very good institutions of higher education. But I think I learned as much in those first few years of life than I’ve learned when somebody was there trying to teach me something. So that part of your life is real. It has tremendous influence in what goes on later. It’s what I call your roots, your roots. In Espanol, raices, raices. That’s where it begins. And we all know that’s so powerful. Those roots are powerful.
DR. EUGENE GARCIA: And my father, I think, probably one of the best developmental psychologists I ever studied with was my father. He didn’t realize it, but in fact, in the southwest, in that Four Corners area where I grew up, in the winter, it gets very cold. But in the summer, it gets very hot. So he had to deal with both of those. And I remember a February day when my father, Lorenzo, took me out. I must have been about six or seven years old–snow on the ground, showed me a cottonwood tree. And in Spanish–
[Speaking Spanish]
DR. EUGENE GARCIA: I’ll translate here. He said, “What makes that tree so strong?” He says, “In the winter, it has to withstand the cold, the ice, the snow, the blizzards–so you get those blizzards. And then in the summer, it’s the heat and the wind that blows in, and then the thunderstorms. How is that–” I guess
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because this is what we all call a teaching moment, right? This is–he was trying to teach me something. And, of course, I immediately said “Well–” respectfully by the way, respectfully. “Well, that tree is so strong because it has a strong trunk. It has strong limbs like my brothers.” I had five brothers, and they were all tough. They were strong. They were older than I. They’re tough. They’ve been in the army. They came back buffed. They were strong. And I said, “That’s why that tree can withstand all that.” And he said, “Yes, but,” here’s the teaching moment. In Spanish–
[Speaking Spanish]
DR. EUGENE GARCIA: Every strong tree has strong roots. It is the roots that sustain them. And he said, “You know, you don’t even see them, do you?” “No, I didn’t see them.” “There they are. They’re there. There.” And yet if those roots were to be stripped away or to die, in Spanish–
[Speaking Spanish]
DR. EUGENE GARCIA: What would happen to that tree, right? No matter how big that trunk was or how strong those branches were, without the roots, boom. Now, later, as I study childhood development, as I understood the importance of early experiences, for many children in the U.S., many times those roots are difficult to see. They’re hard to understand because they’re not your roots. And yet it is those roots sustaining them many times. And since I was– grew up on a farm, I know how difficult it is if you cut something off from its roots and you try to grow it somewhere else or even put it together with something else as good vineyards do, the chances of survival are not high, so those roots are essential.
DR. EUGENE GARCIA: Now, that was my father, I can’t talk about my father without talking about my mother, my goodness, you can’t do that. She was the real family, sort of, spirit. She worked with us in the field, side by side. She raised a family of 10, but was with us always, whether it was tomatoes or peaches or apricots or whatever, she was right there with us. And what she kept saying to us, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, is I don’t want you in these fields. I want something better for you. I don’t want you doing what I’m doing. I want you, she said–I remember this clearly–
[Speaking Spanish]
DR. EUGENE GARCIA: Fly like an eagle. Get out of here. Fly high, fly high. Get out of here. But then she’d say, I can’t give you that. I can’t. I can teach you to pray the rosary. I can show you how to respect Virgen de Guadalupe. I can show you how to respect your elders and your brothers and sisters and your family and others, but I can’t give you what you need to get out, to get out of here. And what that was is, she said educacion. You need education and then she would say…
[Speaking Spanish]
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DR. EUGENE GARCIA: Translates, no one can ever take away what you’ve learned. They’ll take away your car. They had done that a couple of times, you know. And when we were poor, they could take away your house. And I remember having to move, because we couldn’t pay the rent. Well, what you got up here, amigo, what you got up here. And I can’t give you the richness that you need to fly like that eagle. You’ve got to go to school. You’ve got to go to school. There are people there who are going to do that. There are people who are gonna give you that, and I can’t do it. But I wanna make sure you go. So even though my mother and father could not themselves distill and provide us with any kind of educational support, they knew how significant and important it was, and that hasn’t changed a bit today. Every parent in this country, probably around the world, understands the significance of education and how that generates opportunities, now opportunities in multiple ways.
DR. EUGENE GARCIA: I have to say to you that Gino also has a little chip on his shoulder. Of that family of 10, wonderful family–by the way, born in the United States, not immigrant, native for generations, five generations, you know, speaking Spanish as our primary language; yes, spoke Spanish; poor, yes, poor; migrant sharecropper, yes, yes; proud family, though, proud, proud. I didn’t even know I was poor till, you know, I was older. I didn’t even know it. Three graduated from high school, three, all right, and I’m the only one that went on. And I have to say, lucky–luckily went on. Because I’ll tell you this, I’ve got a sister and two brothers who are smarter than I am, you know, they’re really smart, but that wasn’t positioned right for them. That place called school, those opportunities to learn just weren’t there for them, but that wasn’t because they didn’t want to learn. It wasn’t because they couldn’t learn. And here I am a sort of sidebar, a kind of deviant in the sense that I was able to do it. But they could have done it, too, if we would understood how it is we could–so I’ve got a little chip. And you’re gonna hear Gino in this sort of conversation, what can we do? So you’ll hear that voice, because I’m very diverse, you know. Yeah, I can run for school board and I can do research, but I never forget those roots, because they’re powerful, very important.
DR. EUGENE GARCIA: My mother and my sister, Ciprianita, her first day at school, they went together. It was out in the Colorado Mountains, one-room schoolhouse, believe it or not and Ms. Emily was the teacher. My sister will tell the story, Ciprianita. And my Mom and Ciprianita walked up, remember my mother, right, no English, knew that she had to take Ciprianita to school. School’s good. School’s good. Ms. Emily welcomes them. “We’re glad you’re here,” you know. “What’s your name, little girl?” And my sister said, “Ciprianita.” And Ms. Emily said, “You know, I can’t pronounce that very well. Is it okay if I call you Elsie?” And you know what my sister said? “Si.” Sure. Please. Authority figure, absolutely. My sister will tell that story today with tears in her eyes. You know what–who she is today? She is Elsie. She’s not Ciprianita. That changed right there. You think my mother ever went back to that school? Now, I have to remind you, Ms. Emily had no bad intentions at all. She was welcoming. She wanted to embrace this. She wanted to bring that child into school but without
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understanding the significance of that. Elsie went to school three more years and dropped out. There’s nothing there for her. Now, you say, “Well, there was much more than just that.” Yeah, of course. But not having someone who can communicate, not having someone who understands, appreciates con respeto. Even if you don’t respect, don’t respect. Now you say, “Well, gee, that, okay.”
DR. EUGENE GARCIA: But, now, let me give you–now Professor Garcia here, a lot of interesting work on something we call stereotype threat. Initially worked with African-Americans, now work with Mexican-Americans, Latino populations. Essentially, this theory, sociopsychological theory says, “How does one determine who they are.” How do you know who you are? Do you just get up one day and say, “This is who I am.” It’s how other people react to you. Essentially, the outside world is a mirror in which you begin to see yourself, okay? So, you know, this stuff you can say about high expectations or so, this is a sociopsychological theory that makes sense of that. What kids begin to do is begin to see themselves as other people see them and portray them, okay? And then they become–they adopt that identity. They adopt that identity, all right. So you can see if you don’t respect who those kids are, if those raices aren’t respected, they figure it out, and then that’s–then they ought to be something else. Even though maybe they can’t be something else, they are not gonna be what you don’t respect. So sociopsychologically this then becomes an issue.
DR. EUGENE GARCIA: Now what–and the theory of stereotypes have started with college students, gone down to high school students, gone to adolescent, now second graders. Second graders can tell you I’m dumb. Second graders. Where do they get that? They get up one day and say, “Gee, I’m dumb?” No. “I can’t speak English very well, so I’m not gonna speak.” Where do they get that? “I’m a different color and that’s not good.” Where do they get that? Okay? It’s from that place. And clearly, if we’re going to do something, you start with respect.
DR. EUGENE GARCIA: I’ll end with Gino’s story. When I was about 12 or 13, an age where most people think they know everything, right? And I was no different. And in my neighborhood, in my barrio, we call it vecindad, actually, there was a woman called Dona Juana. And, you know, you’ve all heard of Don Juan. And well, the don and dona labels are earned, by the way. It’s not just because you get old. It’s because you’re wise. So when you hear somebody, that’s a dona or something, that’s a wise person. So Dona Juana was our wise person in our little neighborhood. And, of course, whenever you had a problem, you went to Dona Juana because she could give you advice. You didn’t go to a priest. You didn’t go to a counselor. Priest was second, but you go to Dona Juana first, and you get that straightened out the best you could. But–so we were–we thought we kind of pull one on this wise lady, because we knew she wasn’t as wise as we were, about three or four of us.
DR. EUGENE GARCIA: And in my area of Western Colorado, in the spring, butterflies came out. And so the butterflies were an omen, new life, you know,
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just like green grass, like flowers, but the butterflies always seemed to come first. So we thought we’d do something with Dona Juana, because these butterflies are a very positive omen, because we knew if you caught a butterfly, they’re very delicate, and if you’ve ever held a butterfly in your hand, very delicate. And so we knew if we put that butterfly up to Dona Juana in our hand and said, “What do we have in our hand?” And we had her figured out. So she said, “Well, that’s something beautiful.” All we had to do is, just with a little click like that, you could kill that butterfly. And open it, it would be a dead butterfly. “Gee, Dona Juana, you’re not very smart. This is not a good thing.” Or, of course, if she said, “Well, that’s something that’s not very nice, let it go and fly away,” right?
DR. EUGENE GARCIA: I like this story because it translates very nicely, and I didn’t wanna do this, but my friends made me do it anyway. So, you know, we caught the butterfly. You know, they always made me do these things. Dona Juana–
[Speaking Spanish]
DR. EUGENE GARCIA: “You’re very wise, Dona Juana. You can tell. I know you can tell.” You know, people sitting on her porch. And she said–she looked at us and smiled, all the little boys, said–
[Speaking Spanish]
DR. EUGENE GARCIA: That’s in your hands. And I’ll say to you right now, my
expert consultant, this is really in the hands of individuals who touch those kids or off, right? And that’s what I have to say. That’s why we have to be so cognizant of what can make a difference. Thank you very much.