My search to find traces of dad in photos, documents, and stories continues. After finding his worn pocket diploma, I was more determined to continue my search. I wanted an official full size diploma to hang on our new family legacy wall, next to my diplomas and my husband’s diplomas and someday, all four of our children’s diplomas. So, I set off on a quest for the diploma and along the way continued to find traces of dad in the treasures I found.
It took months of phone calls, emails, faxes, notarized documents, and campus visits to finally get my hands dad’s diploma. I could have let myself get frustrated with all the paperwork and time it took, but I decided to slow down and appreciate the process, like a good social worker.
As I began reaching out, I met two wonderful ladies, the campus and district registrars. I so appreciated their help on this journey. I shared with them that dad was a proud alum of Jefferson Davis High School, a fact I have had to try to reconcile with given the school is named after a confederate general, but I’ll get to that later. I think the kind ladies were moved and compelled by my motivation to get dad’s diploma and continue the education legacy he started.
The first order of business was to get a copy of his high school transcripts so they could order the official replacement diploma. When I was finally able to get my hands on the transcript, I felt like I was holding a piece of gold. It was his “Houston Public Schools Permanent Record 1957-1961.” I don’t think I ever really thought about a permanent record being an important historical document but it was a window to dad’s life as a student. As an amateur genealogist, getting my hands on this primary source was another exciting find. Another treasure!
What the transcript told me was that dad didn’t just talk the talk about attendance, conduct and grades. He walked the walk. Mom and Dad both looked at conduct and attendance first on my report cards. Showing up and being respectful were important than A’s. All four years of high school, dad was absent only five days and earned mostly “E’s” in conduct. No wonder he would praise my conduct grades before praising my academic grades. I guess that is why he would get so upset when we tried to stay home “sick.” His grades were strongest in Social Studies, History, Economics and Civics, this makes so much sense to me. As an adult, he loved reading, watching shows about history and never missed voting in an election. He was proud of his right to vote and exercised his civic duty every election.
I spotted his “B” in Typing class and smiled because I remember him advising me to take Typing as my first elective in high school. He said it would help me write papers faster. I took his advice and never looked back.
It is amazing to me to just look at this one page document and feel so connected to him. Every year he improved and his strongest academic semester was in the spring of 1961, his senior year. He was preparing for college. The transcript may have had his grades recorded in black and white, for all to see, but when I read between the lines, between the grades, I see his grit and determination to finish what he started. I see the hope and foundation of preparing for college one day. The transcript request to Houston Community College, after he came back from Vietnam tells me he was again, going to continue to build a better life for himself and his family. That’s for another blog post.
Transcript in hand, I headed over to dad’s alma mater, Jefferson Davis High School. As I walked the halls of Jeff Davis, I tried to imagine what it was like for dad in 1957; a shy, tall, skinny, fifteen year old Mexican American teenager in a predominately white school. He spent the entirety of his elementary and middle school years at what he called “The Mexican School” which was known as Dow Elementary in HISD.
There were remnants of the past everywhere. I felt like I was walking through history in some parts of the building. I started to remember the stories dad would tell me about his experiences of discrimination at the hand of his teachers and classmates. No Spanish could be spoken without reprimand, it was not just his lunch made by hand from his mom’s kitchen that was ridiculed, but his very identity. I stood there, in the middle of the hallway, soaking in the history. I could almost hear the taunts, see stares and feel the ridicule. It felt like the walls were closing in on me. I was feeling conflicted. A part of me was excited to walk the same halls dad walked, but I also felt like I was walking through a history that was housed in a building named in honor of a man who fought to keep people enslaved. It was like time stood still. I took a deep breathe, straightened my back, held my head high and exhaled, just like dad told me to do when I felt scared or unsure of myself.
Dad remained a proud alum of his school and loved the purple and gray colors until the end of his life. Some years before dad died, I looked into ordering the two of us t-shirts from his alma mater. I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t buy shirts and wear the name of a confederate general on my back.
I remember asking dad about what it was like to go to a school named after someone who supported slavery and if it ever bothered him. He shook his head at me and said something along the lines of ‘Aye, Mijita! That was just the way it was. I was grateful for my education and I had bigger things to think about.’ That was dad’s way. He appreciated the opportunities and made things work for him. He didn’t make waves, but that didn’t mean he was proud of the name of his school. He told me once that he knew protest was important, but that he was busy trying to get an education and then fighting a war so he could get more education, “Protest, mis patas (my feet)” he would say. He would say ‘leave the protest to the college kids who didn’t have to work or didn’t have a family to support.’
As I continued to walk the halls, I peeped into the classrooms and imagined him sitting in his desk. Dad was a self-described “nerd,” always in the books and no time for friends, girlfriends, sports or clubs. He would say he took two buses to get to school and that his mom started the breakfast taco craze. It blew his mind that he would get taunted about his tortillas and beans and now white people are making money off breakfast tacos and burritos. When dad would tell me stories like that, I didn’t always know what was true, what was embellished or what were well crafted lessons to keep the focus on staying in school no matter the distance it took to get there; no matter the pressures to choose fun instead of work; no matter the pressures to be proud and strong in the face of ridicule of your food, your family and your culture, because in the end, he would say you will have the last laugh when you walk across that stage and claim your diploma, the symbol of your education and no one can take your education from you. I believed him and embraced that message each time I walked across the stage to first, get my High School diploma, then my Bachelor’s degree and then my Master’s degree. I still believe in that message and will walk across the stage once again and claim another degree to add to our family legacy wall.
The quest led me to find yet another treasure. The two kind ladies helped me once again and connected me with an alumni representative to find a picture of dad in high school. I knew it was a long shot, but I had to try. I never imagined I would see a picture of dad as a young man, let alone his senior picture. Another treasure! Of course, one of the ladies commented on his good looks, “He is a handsome Panther.” I just laughed when I read that line in our email exchange. Dad was still turning ladies heads. But she was right; he was “a handsome Panther.”
Manuel Pacheco Jr
Class of 1961
I was so fascinated by his picture I ordered the entire yearbook to see what high school life was like for dad. Again, I felt conflicted. I was excited to flip through yearbook pages and see dad as a high school senior; yet, from the title of the yearbook “Beauvoir” (which was the last home of Jefferson Davis) to each page I turned were images and remnant of segregation and a reverence and honoring of the confederacy. I could feel my blood pressure rising and just kept thinking how this school could still be named after a confederate general in 2014. I thought about sending a letter to the school board or writing an editorial for the paper. If the racist mascots could be changed, then surely, the names of schools could be changed. After some thought, I decided against it, not because I didn’t believe it should happen, but because I’m not sure dad would have wanted me to fight that fight. I was uneasy just walking away like that, but I knew, with all my heart, that he appreciated the education he received in high school, he appreciated the opportunities that education gave him and the education that no one could take away. In the face of racism, of segregation, of discrimination, dad chose to protest in his own way and didn’t need to change the name of his school in his time. He educated himself and created a legacy of valuing education. His protest to succeed in the face of that confederate general took courage, took perseverance, and took strength. I learned to see dad’s perspective and respect his way.
He encouraged my activism; he made the space for me as I learned and grew aware of the world and raised my consciousness. He was there to share his perspective and to affirm mine. To help me see that protest wasn’t always about raising your voice but about standing tall in the face of hatred and oppression. He would tell me to “go and protest” and would say that is why he worked hard to give ME a chance to go to college and be one of those college kids who protests in the name of justice.
Here it is July 2015 and we are in a painful place in America and watching history unfold as the symbols of hate, racism and oppression are being named for what they are, being removed from places of honor, and being torn down with or without permission. It’s also a time where finally, there are calls to change the schools named after confederate supporters, including Jefferson Davis High School. I imagine there will be some protest, in the same way that people protested the change in school mascots, but it was the right thing to do. It is time.
In the name of justice, I know dad would support the name change because like he said “no one can take your education from you.” I will pass this message, this treasure on to my children as we continue his legacy of education. Thanks Dad. What a treasure!
Postcards to Heaven 