Spanish speaking peoples in Utah, oral histories: book 3, numbers 22 through 30

Page 11

INTERVIEW: Mr. and Mrs. Richard Cordova Page 7 used to term it the drop-out, which isn't true, I don't think, because I find that children on the elementary level are really outstanding students. Mr. Here is a perfect example, now we're talking about drop-out, here is a perfect example. This happened last winter: this little child in the 4th grade ••• he's a very talented artist for being a young child, he is a Mexican-American child, and he has a few problems reading and writing, so they had the school play this May, it was a PTA meeting, the little boy runs up to this mother and drags her down there to meet his teacher, he was very proud of his teacher. ~nat does the teacher tell the mother the minute they get introduced? She tells her, "This kid will never amount to anything. It wouldn't do you a bit of good to educate him, be­cause he'll never get anywhere," in the 4th grade, that is where they start using, the teaching system, or the Anglo system, whichever way you want to put it, this is where they start on us, way down there, they might be a little pun that they throw at us, but as a Mexican-American myself I am sensitive to being called dumb and probably, that is why I dropped out of school, that's my answer, and I think that this kid isn't going to make it through school either. Mrs. This is, they are very consistent in this rejection, I guess, you know an outsider would say, well, the answer is very obvious, get