Mentors and Motivation: They Can Come From Anywhere
Albert Valencia
Associate Professor and Director of
the Mentoring Institute
Early in my life, English-speaking mentors were just not around. My maternal grandparents, who were immigrants and refugees from Mexico’s revolutions, spoke only Spanish and never, ever, spoke of their lives in Mexico for fear that Mexican Federal Troops were eavesdropping and would pounce on the opportunity to return them to Mexico and try them for crimes of revolution.
. . . in the barrio, the last ones hired were the first ones fired. I saw this fact of life play itself out every time one of my relatives was laid off. There seemed no way out.
As a child, I half expected Emiliano Zapata, a General during the 1910 Mexican Revolution, or General Pancho Villa, to thunder in on their palomino horses showing up at our house to free my family of its fear and make things right. That never happened, but I often invoked the spirits of these Generals whenever I needed courage and strength. To earn four college degrees, given my background, I called on them a lot.
My grandparents had 20 children who, of course, were my aunts and uncles. I had a total of 58 first cousins and for a few years, everyone seemed to live in the poor Los Angeles communities of Watts and Compton. The lives of my aunts and uncles were taken up with the business of gaining entry level jobs, earning minimum wage, and trying to not repeat the cycle of poverty. But in the barrio, the last ones hired were the first ones fired. I saw this fact of life play itself out every time one of my relatives was laid off. There seemed no way out.
The good news at my grandma’s house was that there was always television. No matter how the day had gone, no matter how hard the work had been, no matter how awful the racial taunts had felt, the TV was always turned on at night and visions of White middle class America called to us. Plus, to soften the impact of our reality, we had candy. Lots of it.
My uncle George (“Tio Jorge!”) worked in a factory that made hard candy. At night, after work, he liked to sit at his table drinking whiskey, smoking cigars, and playing poker with a shadowy cast of characters who smoked and drank and talked about the strangeness of America. Every four to six weeks, he would peel himself away from his poker game and bring us a 5-gallon tin can filled with the remnants of every kind and color of hard candy that had broken off and fallen on the factory floor.
One evening, while settling in with my uncles, cousins and grandmother to watch a television movie, I rummaged through the can of candy and snagged an almost unbroken grape-flavored sucker that even had the string handle intact. I sat on the floor, legs crossed, watching the nightly warm-up routine: uncles and cousins arguing over positioning the wire clothes hanger antenna on our black and white TV trying to get the clouded images to clear. I had no idea that my life was about to change forever.
I don’t remember who starred in that night’s movie, what the plot line was or its ending. What I do remember were young people laughing, singing songs, and dancing while they went to something called “college.” The men wore lettermen sweaters, dress pants, and loafers—shoes with no laces which were something I’d never seen before. The girls all looked great in their big hair-dos, sweaters, skirts, high heels, and necklaces. None of them spoke Spanish. No one seemed in any hurry to get to work. There were no empty whiskey glasses, and no one looked like any of my 58 cousins.
In the movie, on their way to the college dining hall, one of the young people sang a song with the lyrics, “patience and fortitude and you can’t get better than that.” Then, as they all sat at a long table eating a hot lunch, the lead character looked up at the busboy clearing dishes and said, “Hey Tommy, what are you doing?” To my surprise, Tommy replied, “I’m working my way through school!” In a flash my future became absolutely clear. I knew what I had to do. It didn’t matter one whit if my family was poor. It didn’t matter if I lived in a violent and desperate barrio. It didn’t matter if uncles had served jail time or if alcohol and drug abuse surrounded me. None of this mattered anymore because now I had a plan.
Forgetting about the movie, I asked everyone in the house, “where is a college?” Nobody knew. At my grandma’s house, no one ever mentioned high school graduation or college applications. These school activities were reserved for “wedos” who spoke English. I was elated though, because I believed if I could “work my way through,” anything was possible.
As I look back now, I realize the power of mentoring can arrive when you least expect it and motivation can come from any source. I found my first English- speaking mentors in an old black and white musical set in the optimistic years following World War Two. For me, the movie’s song lyrics and the thought of being able to work while achieving something besides take-home pay gave me hope. Whenever I needed to feel strong, I not only invoked the images of Zapata and Villa, but I sang the words of that song, “patience and fortitude, and you can’t get better than that.” Patience and fortitude were two of the qualities that helped me go to college and earn four degrees.
There were people in my life who helped too. Rene Reynoso, a teammate of mine, while waiting in line with me to enter a high school dance, encouraged me to pursue my sports dream of an athletic scholarship. He said, “Orale, go for it, ese!” And he meant it. Two months later, Guadalupe White, a family friend took me in off the streets and noticed that I had very high scores in standardized tests and encouraged me to pursue an academic scholarship. Then there was my daughter, Sharlene, who was born when I was 17 years old. I didn’t want my life to be a cliché or a caricature. I wanted my daughter to be proud of her daddy. My task was clear: go to work everyday, go to college every night and don’t complain. Just get it done. And I did.
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