JOSE SANTIAGO: AN INTROSPECTIVE VIGNETTE PRE-ELECTION, as Written by an Anglo Friend

In 1990, my father Carlos came to the United States from Colombia.  As we say within the family or with trusted friends, “he took the scenic route.”

Like the vast majority of those attracted to this country for many years, Carlos wanted to work and save enough money to bring my mom Angela and my sister Maria north to live with him as a family.

By 1995, from his job as a factory supervisor able to accrue overtime, he had accumulated the necessary funds, with full recognition that Mom and Maria would be taking a more circuitous and expensive path to reunite with Carlos.

 

Not long after they arrived in the USA, Mom became pregnant. I was born in 1996, an American citizen from my first breath.

 

Economically, our four-person family unit was self-sustaining, as much a function of motivation as any special skills other than the experience gained by Carlos. We always believed that in the USA, if you want a job, you can become employed. Issues of whether the wage is fair we left to others.

 

Culturally it was a struggle to find our footing. My parents were content with paying the bills, relaxing with Spanish television, with nary a thought of trying to fit in with those outside their increasingly Hispanic neighborhood. My sister Maria and I encouraged them to sample the many, and more diverse, places accessible on the subway but mostly they were uninterested. Their lack of confidence in using English was certainly a factor; neither their jobs nor their limited socializing required speaking English.

 

Maria, who was born in 1988, was able to enroll in non-credit ESL classes at the local community college, eventually earn an Associates degree in Liberal Arts and obtain an okay job in an office.  She was convinced that being fully documented would have meant a position more consistent with her capabilities. She was right for sure.

 

From the outset there was pressure on me at home to learn Spanish. At the time, I did not understand why: school was almost entirely in English. Down the road, I understood: they wanted me to always appreciate their culture, or is it “our” culture? Besides, being bilingual would be an important advantage in the future.

 

I went to a neighborhood public school that, to my parents, did not seem very demanding. They thought about sending me to a private school, but that cost too much, or to a more rigorous public charter school, but the teachers union’s political allies had prevented the latter from obtaining a charter to open up nearby. Truth is, like most guys I hung out with, I drifted through school, especially high school – if I got my homework done and did reasonably well on tests, I knew I would pass with a decent GPA. Soccer and girls were my true points of focus.

 

To my parents, neither of whom had advanced beyond high school, my attending college was a given, even if they knew little about the American education system other than what Maria had experienced. Looking back, perhaps if I had a high school guidance counselor who actually knew me and to whom I could have gone for advice, things would have been different.

 

As it was, my first awareness of the whole college admission process was coupled with serious sticker shock. The bottom line was simple: going to a public college was financially mandatory, as was lessening the overall high cost by attending a community college for the first two years.

 

At times, community college felt like grade 13. Nonetheless, the academic requirements were a clear step up, with another jump when I transferred to a four-year public university. I knew, without much research, that a Bachelor’s degree with a Business Administration major was what I and my parents wanted.

 

Following graduation in 2018, I did not immediately get a job that I mistakenly thought came attached to a college diploma. It is an understatement to say this was a big and painful discovery. So I did a little of this and a little of that. I was hard-pressed to understand why I was not more gainfully employed. If it was having gone to a public university, having a nebulous major, and recording only a 3.2 GPA were the reasons, then why were classmates with comparable credentials moving into decent positions.

 

Then, in 2021, after George Floyd was murdered, the Human Resources door in corporate America opened wider for minorities, admittedly moreso for African Americans than for Hispanics, but still there was interesting activity on the hiring front. I reactivated my dormant application effort and landed a job as an assistant to a project manager. Part of me realized that the interview was a bit on the soft side, but you did not hear me complaining.

 

It took a while, a couple of years in fact, but I came to realize that my ostensible peers in the company had attended much better schools for their K-12 education. And they had degrees from better known universities. Not only did they know stuff that was not immediately recognizable by me, I was not receiving any training to pull me out of my deficit. Moreover, the cultural awkwardness evident from the first time I walked into a meeting where I was the sole Hispanic showed no signs of dissipating. Even in non-job conversations, I could not mesh with those around me.

 

In year three, it was clear that the corporate commitment to DEI had waned; with hindsight, the earlier activity, including the hiring of yours truly, seemed like a check-the-box exercise.

 

By this time, I had come to dislike my job – even with its nice paycheck—and with it, corporate America in general. I quit … and nobody at the office cared.

 

Neither did anybody I know get in my face and push me to apply someplace else. I guess my attitude was that companies were all alike, which, in retrospect, is not something I could possibly have known considering my limited experience.

 

In my defense – if you think my action was rash – I have asked myself whether additional credentials were needed: CPA, law degree, certificate of some sort, etc. And yes, I probably should have majored in something more specific than Business Administration, something which could connect with a definable/portable skill set.

 

Considering the distaste I had developed — maybe prematurely — for corporate life and not being eager for another dose of institutional learning, the above education paths were not appealing to me.

 

Instead, I went back to some of my side hustles — I did Door Dash and Uber for a while. Was it enough to live on? Only if I lived at home and was frugal, not easy to accomplish when you are feeling a bit depressed and tempted to drown your sorrows.

 

I could have gone on FanDuel I guess and bet on soccer matches. I could not trade stock options (something a classmate had told me about; it sounded like a way to win only if you could afford to lose, not my situation) or I could have peddled drugs and been disowned by my family. In a positive vein, I could have become an ESL tutor, or a mentor to an aspiring Jose, while trying not to be openly disappointed in my situation.

 

Did my parents understand my decision to give up a good salary, a number that was a multiple of their combined earnings? No. Do they constantly ask why – periodically, not daily, thank goodness.

 

There are times when my father, who has been relatively tight with his money, talks about opening a small restaurant, staffed entirely by our family. He means well, giving me a productive occupation, but all I can think about is why did I go to college if this is to be my job. Maybe I could persuade him to buy a fixer upper that could be a combination of our own residence and a rental unit.

 

Both my sister Maria and I think that Carlos secretly would rather put his savings aside for an inexpensive retirement home back in Colombia. Mom would rather be here with her grandchildren, of which currently there are none, much to her dismay.

 

In addition to Maria’s job situation, more or less a consistent source of irritation for her, my sister’s emotional state includes trying to figure out where her heart and head are concerning the American she has been going with for the past two years. Is she attracted to him for all the “normal” reasons or as a way to resolve her status — for free as a loving wife, or is it more like a philosophical statement on behalf of cultural diversity. Mom is eager to hear Maria’s wedding bells, while trying not to show it so explicitly that everything could boomerang.

 

On occasion, we all debate immigration policy, not a surprise.  Carlos, who worked long hours and waited many years to get documented, is dismayed that current border crossers often can readily get free benefits – debit cards, food, lodging, maybe work visas — not available back in the day. My mother does not disagree. My sister is more sympathetic, and simultaneously irritated at me, in her words, for not taking advantage of my birthright.

 

As for me, I read an immigration descriptor as being a “trilemma:” the majority of people want an enforceable border, businesses simply want workers for economic reasons, and humanitarians want to help those in need, whether it be economic or personal safety. Try to create an immigration program that embodies all three components and satisfies everybody!

***

Enough introspection: I close with the typical query, “now what?” That is both my question and that of my therapist as well. (Don’t ask if the latter is money well spent and please do not tell my parents that I am seeing a shrink!)

Comments by the Writer:

We know that irrespective of future immigration, Jose’s story is one component of the big picture of important demographic change in this country. The projected crossover year when there will be no ethnic majority is 2045, not far away.

You would think this unfolding future would cause companies, and organizations in general, to gradually become more diversified in their employment, matching what is already happening with their customer/patient/client list.

Maybe this will happen but how many minorities find themselves in Jose’s position: frustrated thinking about past decisions and circumstances that are not rectifiable, with a clear experience of being uncomfortable in corporate America. To wax philosophical, will demographic reality as a force for broader change, inclusive of corporate/organizational training commitments that would be pertinent to a Jose, remain less attitudinally meaningful than the existing imbalance in wealth. Older white people have the lion’s share and probably are not eager to see, or advocate for, generalized acceptance of the new demographic world.

As somewhat of a digression, since what follows is not directly connected to demographic numbers, I am struck by the accuracy of the statement which speaks to the qualitative nature of change, “Education is the Civil Rights issue of our Times.”  

Ignoring higher education (of all types), it is obvious that K-12 education, and the funding thereof, is critically important. If we cared about the education being received by students in urban public schools, which are heavily minority, we would provide more AP courses and a greater number of skilled guidance counselors.   

If Jose had received a competitive K-12 education – which should be that civil right, had a better understanding of college pre-enrolling, and had an appreciation (from somewhere) of the world of corporate America, including its uneven commitment to both training and DEI, maybe he would be a different person today.

Then too, perhaps Jose simply lacked the work ethic of his father.

Should he have persevered at his corporate job, including identifying a colleague who could have counseled him on how to fit in the system, how to avoid the loneliness which Jose undoubtedly was feeling.  Should he have been more curious as a young person, become more aware of ways of thinking not inherently part of (or maybe simply not apparent) his immediate neighborhood? After all, to echo sister Maria’s point about not having taken advantage of his circumstance, Jose was free of documentation issues, unlike her.

Jose might respond, “I am not free of being a minority.”

This is a true and important statement, and equally true, it does not come close to fully explaining his individual situation.

Nor can society avoid major criticism for its dysfunctional K-12 education system, or corporate America, for its lack of training.