Fashion Key to Happiness
I hated my sisters for the humiliation I had to suffer while standing on the stool as I was wearing one of their latest creations of clothing. The pins piercing my skin and my bleeding made them scream because I might stain the delicate fabric or tear the pattern made of paper.
For several years as they were completing their training in Tijuana, “Corte y Confección” (fashion design and creation), my older sisters transformed me into a human mannequin. My other duty was to help them memorize with the flash cards all the fashion terminology. There was a debate in fashion that they had to provide proof of why buttons were better than using zippers.
It’s a real skill to make the perfect fit for the buttons. If the hole was too wide or too big the buttons slipped out, or if it was too narrow the button would not fit, requiring the process to be redone. It appeared my sisters believed in buttons, not zippers.
I had to listen to endless hours of repetition about fashion: the different fabrics, hemlines, color trends , and other things I found boring. “They are older,” my mother said. “You must obey their request.”
I thought it a waste of my time because I wanted to be playing sports with my friends. I never suspected that in a few years I would benefit from retaining fashion terminology. Girls’ fashion was not the stuff boys like me wanted to know or learn. I was a boy just reaching puberty.
In 1966, I was freed of this duty of being a human pin cushion. I became a farmworker like my father. We got up daily at four. By four-thirty we walked to get on the pick-up truck with a camper shell that would take us across the border. Seventeen grown men rode in the back of the truck, just like sardines. At thirteen years old, I was the smallest and most agile. I got to sit in the middle row, facing the rear-view window. I saw the road benchmarks as we traveled to the fields, my only entertainment for the whole day.
We worked in Oceanside, California, so in our daily commute on the 5 Freeway heading north, I knew that after Old Town I would see Presidio Park. My most anticipated landmark was the building on top of the mountain next to Linda Vista Road. At the time, I did not know the name, but I would look with anticipation and admiration.
Our travels started in the early morning. The eastern sunrise served as a background for the castle. The morning sun rays reflected brilliantly on the windows. This, combined with the many lights illuminating the buildings, made for a rainbow of colors.
In my mind, this was majestic.
I later discovered that the building I admired was the University of San Diego (USD), a private Catholic university. My father, like the other men in the pickup truck, never dreamed that they could send a son or daughter to study there. I also did not believe it would ever be possible for me to attend.
My father faced many challenges in his life. He did not know how to read or write. He had only six months of schooling when he was orphaned at the age of six. To send a son or daughter to study at USD, the tuition alone was my father’s salary for the whole year, not including room and board. I never had a conversation with my father about my future.
My father was respected by all. Even the foreman in the fields would call him Don Pablo. In Mexico, the “Don” in front of someone’s name would be the equivalent in the United States to a doctor, just as you would always use “Dr. Casas” when speaking to a physician.
My father ended his work in farming, making a life-changing decision. The whole family left Tijuana. In 1967 we moved to Los Angeles. We never looked back, only forward. My parents believed that I must learn the English language to make a better future for myself. I was placed as an English as a Second Language (ESL) student , trying to be a teenager to fit in and assimilate to this new culture. I had made enough progress in my English-speaking skills in two years that I was labeled “college-bound.” As a young boy, I was motivated to fit in and to impress the young girls. It’s why I learned English in two years.
Ironically, according to the school administration, because I was a native of Mexico, I could not use Spanish as my foreign language requirement. I had to take French. So, trying to adapt to my new country, I had no choice but to follow the program. The romance language and girls asking me to speak French to them were why I managed to add a third language to my overflowing brain. I had no idea that what I was trying to do was, for some, impossible. I had no choice, as my whole future was riding on my rising to the challenge.
My fairy godmother was working her magic, combined with this new program called the Equal Opportunity Program (EOP). I managed to be allowed to enroll as a freshman at the University of San Diego in 1971. I had been invited to “the palace,” but like Cinderella I also was the poorest in the kingdom. This was not an obstacle or setback for me since growing up with nothing you must make do with what you have. The other students of the university had never experienced hunger. I was able to eat without having to be hungry for the first time in my life.
Back in high school, my counselor suggested that at USD I should major in Spanish, that this major would be my best chance of success, so that is what I did.
One of the students in my Spanish upper division class happened to work for the athletic director for her work study. The basketball coach had asked the athletic director for tutors in Spanish for his star players. They could not play if they flunked their Spanish class. My classmate mentioned my name and suggested I be given the chance as tutor.
This was the beginning of an upward spiral movement in my college life. I was able to make progress with the players. I used some of the best practices from my teachers in my English and French trajectory. I tailored my approach with low pressure and real-life lessons to see the benefits of learning Spanish and their desire to impress the señoritas.
In one of our tutoring sessions, I had a conversation with the captain of the team. The players were from many states, and he asked if we could go eat Mexican food in Tijuana. During this era, a rite of passage was for underage students to go dancing and drinking in the Tijuana night clubs.
Before long, I was serving as a translator and tour guide for players and their friends. The girls wasted no time in deciding to go shopping. I also became the fashion advisor. I could not believe that all this useless fashion information that I helped my sisters memorize started coming out of my mouth. The girls started talking about hemlines and how their dresses draped, and I became a facilitator that they could trust with fashion and their virtue. I started getting referrals from other girls asking me to take them shopping in Tijuana.
I know that if I had not escorted so many students on the trips to Tijuana, they probably would not have invited me into study groups on subjects that I did not understand. I was lucky to have classmates not letting me fail. My fairy godmother–or was it faith?–put me at the right place and time for me to survive at USD.
I had another job working at the library. We had to read all the announcements that people wanted to place on the campus community boards. This was how I read the one about Resident Assistants getting free room, board, and tuition. At the bottom of the page, it read, “leadership skills needed.”
I started by asking the head cheerleader how she managed to secure her spot. She said, “It was just like in high school; you must be popular to get people to vote for you.” Thanks to the cheerleader’s advice and with the influence of the girls I had helped with their shopping and my players that I tutored, I was elected sophomore class president. This is how I became a resident assistant.
I thought my sisters’ fashion jargon had been information I would never use. But the languages of fashion and Spanish became my secret weapon at the University of San Diego.
The process of becoming bilingual, bicultural and biliterate can be hard. The hard work and the process make most new immigrants usually quit halfway, when they are so close to gaining that “Aha” moment and things start to make sense.
I remember how I also felt frustrated because I could not learn fast enough. I was surprised and disappointed that my own ethnic people born in the United States would say, “Go back to Mexico,” to the newest immigrants. They used the same hateful words (“pochos”) that their parents or ancestors had to endure for them to be born here in America.
I took the challenge of the “pochos” to prove to them they were wrong. I used that hate as fuel to demonstrate that my heavy Spanish accent was and is nothing to be ashamed of. I am proud to have been born in Mexico. I was able to get a four-year education from the castle and, like Cinderella, today I am living happily ever after.
I must explain that my life changed on my first day at USD, while I was in the cafeteria looking at the parade of girls coming to eat. My muse walked in with her auburn hair, her blue eyes, and the most beautiful long legs in that miniskirt, walking in a regal and authoritative manner. The boys in the group said she was out of my league and that she would never go out with me. Donna is her name, my wife and queen of over fifty years. I guess I just like to go for the impossible. Today, I am the King and captain of my destiny. As the great Cesar Chavez said to the farm workers, “Si Se Puede” (where there is a will, there is a way).
To my sisters, I am grateful and I would gladly stand back on the stool and wear one of your latest creations. I am proud to be your human pin cushion and human mannequin.