We Owe Our Schoolchildren Nothing Less Than the Best

I teach students to write poetry because I believe that the best writers in all genres are the metaphor-makers. I have had the privilege of teaching some fine student writers who have helped me reestablish Santa Ana High School’s literary and art magazine, Vista, which has been so successful that The Times called it the “Magazine [That] Helps Kids Turn the Page” (July 5, 1994).

One of those students, Mario Bustos, now a sophomore at Stanford, was featured as one of the outstanding seniors of 1995 and was heralded as “a true Horatio Alger story” because he, the valedictorian and the Associated Student Body president of Santa Ana High School, was the 12th child of a single mother who spoke only Spanish. After her husband died when Mario was a baby, she left her mud hut in Acapulco and brought her 12 children to the United States, where she worked in a sewing factory to support them until she was hit by a truck and could no longer work. Mario, like the others, seemed destined to leave school early to help the family, but teachers recognized his talent and the family chose to make sure that he stayed in school.

Another Vista editor, Miguel Ornelas, ASB vice president and winner of a Disneyland Creativity trophy for his short story “Racism Hurts,” is at UC Berkeley. A third Vista editor, Jaime Rubio, ASB secretary, who has read his poetry on national radio and appeared on Latino community television, is at USC. All three of these students had a successful first year at their universities. They were adequately prepared to compete with students from private and public schools across the nation.

Alejandro Vega, last year’s editor-in-chief of Vista, valedictorian, ASB vice president and the originator of our on-campus Community Service Center, is now a freshman at Yale. His father is disabled and his mother works in a factory, but Alejandro is one of the best students I have ever had since I started teaching 31 years ago. I am expecting him to be Phi Beta Kappa.

In funding Vista and a new limited-editions project in which each of these and other student writers will have copyrighted, hard-bound editions of their collected works, I have received financial support from Los Amigos, a proactive Latino community organization who want their youth to succeed. I have attended Los Amigos meetings and have listened to their concerns and, because their youth are my students, their concerns are my concerns. We need to have those who represent us support the opportunities for the futures of all of our youth. Many of those opportunities are being closed.

One of the lovely traditions of Los Amigos is, after all the concerns are aired and all of the victories are shared, to form a circle and hold hands and pray. Sometimes youth are there who have done or are going to do something of consequence; sometimes it is a family without work and a place to stay. They are put in the circle and prayed for. Those who are in attendance help the family find work and a place to live. The members of Los Amigos really want the Latino youth of Orange County to be all that they can be.

As an English teacher, I look for metaphors that deepen understanding. In Edmund Spenser’s allegory, “Fairie Queene,” in the canto in which Redcrosse Knight is looking for his true love, Una (Truth), he easily can see the detractors like Envy, Strife and Avarice, but he falls for Duessa, who looks so much like Una that he can’t tell the difference. Duessa is a simulacrum, the “seeming truth.” She interrupts his quest for Una.

The political arena can be just such a maze of potential deception on a grand scale. Many times there are empty promises or misguided good intentions. We cannot afford to make mistakes with the futures of our youth.

I want to avoid the deception and to vote for those who really want all the boys and girls of this nation to become all that they can be, and that includes improving, not undermining, public instruction.

Ninety percent of the school-age children and youth of this nation are in public schools. They are our future and deserve our commitment to provide the best public instruction possible. I will intently listen to the debates and to the commentaries to increase my certainty that my vote is for Una.