Angela Davis’ Life Lessons
Moving to America
In life, never settle for crumbs. Become educated and informed; do not let the ignorance of the law or society’s rules suffocate you. There are no borders or limitations on potential.
I arrived in the United States from Tijuana, Mexico, as a frightened 13-year-old boy in 1967. In 2023, I turned seventy years of age. I have replaced my fear with serenity, curiosity,adaptability, versatility, and gratitude.
Surprised how having a green card would change our lives. With our legal status, we could travel on both sides of the border. I did not hear the reason why or what my mother and father said about us moving to the United States. Our parents told us to go to the living room, while they stayed in the kitchen discussing our move to Los Angeles.
Walkouts of 1968
My parents’ education. Together, they had less than three years of schooling at Mexico Elementary level. Education was why we moved to the United States: for my benefit.
I was a student at Hallenbeck Junior High in East Los Angeles, and I was enrolled as an English as a second language (ESL) student. I was walking like all the other students to my classroom on March 5, 1968, when I heard students shouting from Theodore Roosevelt High School. The distance between schools was a two- or three- minute walk.
“Walkout! Walkout! Walkout! Walkout!” Our teacher’s reaction was to keep the doors of the classrooms and windows closed. However, the windows rattled, indicating something was happening at the high school. Teachers glanced out the window every few seconds and pulled to check that the door was secure; something was reaching a climax it was impossible to ignore. The 1968 high school students understood that the future had to change. This generation recognized that staying quiet and obedient like our parents had not worked.
That evening when we finished eating dinner, we sat to watch the Spanish channels of my mother’s telenovelas. On this night Mother could not watch her shows. All stations were covering the student walkouts. According to the anchor, “The demonstration got the attention of the Board of Education. As many as 22,000 mostly Mexican Students participated. Police beatings of the students were reported at Roosevelt high school. The students were taken to local hospitals.”
Our family and many others like us arrived in large groups like all other waves of immigrants in the history of the United States. Those who stayed behind in Mexico followed to the United States. We did not know that our presence was causing the displacement of the Black community of East Los Angeles.
Angela Davis’s Impact on Jose
This was probably the reason why the school board decided to have Angela Davis as a speaker. Davis received her MA at the University of California San Diego And PhD from Humboldt University. She became an instructor at UCLA, but because of her political opinions about communism, in 1970 UCLA refused to renew her contract because she was a militant American Black activist.
In the fall of 1970, I was surrounded by my Mexican friends Joel, Alfonso, Jorge, and other friends at Roosevelt High School in East Los Angeles. The topic of conversation was who are we asking to go to the prom. My friend, Joel asked, “Vatos que Onda con las morras did your girlfriends said yes”
Jorge, Alfonso, and I spoke, “Simon”
Joel responds, “Orale Chingon”
“Jose, are we going in your 58 Chevrolet Impala?”
“Yes, I got my cousin to do the Upholstery in Black Diamond tuck and roll. With my summer job, I got Baby Moon’s Chrome rims and a red indoor light.”
We continued checking out the girls and wondering when this speaker was going to start. We wore our flannel shirts and Levis pants as if this was the school uniform.
As I looked around the bleachers I saw groups of Blacks, Asians, and many other minorities. The Russians are the only white faces in the gym. We were waiting for Miss Angela Davis to speak. Typical high school students, some had bored looks wasting this moment flying paper planes.
I had no idea who this person was or how she was about to change my life.
The principal announced our guest speaker: Miss Angela Davis, a twenty-something Black woman, dressed in black pants, a black turtleneck sweater, and black platform shoes. Her hair was in an Afro, the signature style for any Black woman of this era. She appeared taller than our principal and he was six-foot one or two.
She did not stay long behind the podium. She walked to the center of the stage pacing at times to the left and right to make sure her message was clear to all of us in attendance. She did not need a microphone; her voice carried to the corners and rafters of the gym. It was clear and forceful.
I did my best to understand what she was saying. Having spent two years as an ESL student and only one year as a college-bound student, my language comprehension was not equal to that of a native speaker.
The topic was “Students, your future wages are what is at stake!”
At the beginning of Angela’s speech, she said “Go to the library and read books about what life was like before 1900 for colored people. How lynchings happened for no apparent reason to black people women, men, and children. This has been happening to us since we became slaves. This tactic took a long time to put an end to the hangings. It started with the civil rights movement and over 200 anti-lynching bills that were introduced to Congress to put an end to these massacres.
The white majority used many rules and excuses to keep the blacks in their place.
Africans have been forced to become slaves; the owners have considered us nothing more than wild animals that need taming to keep us in a place of servitude. The white mobs would get on their horses and go to black communities the same way that they would go deer hunting just for the sport of it.
It’s hard for us to imagine that before 1900, free slaves who had managed to become self-taught, would have been killed for teaching their children to read or write. Our ancestors’ fighting spirit and flame are up to you too never let them die.
We are in this together for those of you of Chicano heritage You also have a lot to lose. Since you started coming Hospitals have been denying basic care to you. Because no one spoke Spanish. The hospitals feared that you could not pay. You are like stray animals on the streets left on your own, how a simple wound caused Chicanos to eventually die. Your people did not get proper health care.”
My father Pablo held on to this belief as he attended funerals of his compadres. He did not trust the health system in the United States, even when he had a urinary infection. Pablo moved back to Mexico for his healthcare.
“Young Black and Latino students, it’s time to stop fighting amongst yourself for crumbs; that are falling off the table.”
This sentence is the one that spoke directly to me—I had lived with poverty and hunger-fighting for crumbs with my brother and sisters in Mexico. When I heard this line from Miss Davis, the gym transformed just like in the movies the spotlights shined on the two of us. Miss Davis and Jose, a one-on-one conversation.
“Education combined with your character is part of the solution. Prejudice comes in many forms. Beware of the people in power. They will make promises. It’s up to you to research their true intentions. Understand the fine print on documents and the laws that are keeping you from legally achieving equality.”
“You will soon be going to work. When you are asked what position you are applying for do not say you don’t know. Your first step is to find out all you can about the company. Understand that your life and future will depend on the salary you can demand.”
Those words would become my mantra. She was directing me to earn a place on the table of abundance. I combined Miss Davis’s words with the teachings of my parents. Creating a vision and a plan to abolish the chain of poverty.
Otra vez (One more time) Walkout
Another walkout was necessary as the changes of the walkouts of 1968 had been forgotten. This time the student leaders and adult advisors had called the newspaper and television stations to make sure that we would receive national attention. This happened in the fall of 1970. We students were done waiting.
I stood next to the top of the stairs by the entrance to my high school, Theodore Roosevelt in East Los Angeles, together with seven hundred other students. One, two, three, four… the buses arrived by the student drop-off section, the buses delivering so many sheriffs, Los Angeles police, and riot special units. The line of German shepherd dogs was all we needed to see. A slaughter we could not survive.
We were high school students trying to protest to improve the school conditions of our equipment or lack of supplies compared to schools in better neighborhoods. Was it wrong to be better prepared as we enter the workforce, for us and those that will follow?
The officers got in formation like a Roman Empire army. They marched in unison as they walked. They hit the riot shields with a loud blast, and with each step they banged the shield to let us know this is what awaited us for protesting. We had seen the news in the walkouts of 1968 that jail and a good beating await those willing to make the sacrifice to confront the police.
This is why I chose to lose this fight. The war would not end if I lay dead or in jail. My mind was clear: I had been warned by my counselors that colleges would not allow anyone that would have a police record to their campus.
The officers approaching made us all run toward the doors trying to avoid ending up in the hospital. As we reached for the doors of the high school, we discovered that they were all locked, making us run like prey animals. Someone said, “Let’s go to the football fields. There are low fences to climb over.”
In college, I read the book “Man’s Searching for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl. In my Psychology class, this book was about survival. In life, we select to give up and die, or elect to keep the flame of persistence alive.
Thanks to my counselor’s advice, I did not end up with a police record on that Walkout day. In the fall of 1971, I became the first in my family to attend the University of San Diego. In 1975, my father for the first time wore a suit and my mother a formal dress attending a graduation ceremony difficult to comprehend culturally and because they spoke no English. My parents heard Jose Jaime Casas called on the stage. That gesture of happiness on their faces is proof that their son, thanks to them and Angela Davis’ advice. Jose did not settle for crumbs neither should you.
Author Statement: This third-year submission of a day that changed my life is honored to be published in Tidepools. At seventy years old, this proud Immigrant still has mileage. Being bilingual is an asset.