By: Daniel Acosta, Jr.

Prologue

 At a very early age when I started grade school in 1951, I saw that the white kids at my school were the ones favored by the teachers, especially those who were smart and popular. I wanted to be like them; I did not want to be considered a “Mexican” like the rest of my Mexican classmates. Because of my fair complexion and light brown hair, I was sometimes mistaken to be white. I had a strong desire to be like the white popular kids at school; I wanted the attention and admiration of my white teachers. Although El Paso is a city with a large Mexican population, none of my teachers were Hispanic. The only adult role models in school for me were kind, middle-aged white women teachers, who saw my eagerness to learn and to excel in the classroom and gave me extra attention as that “smart little Mexican boy”.  At home and at school I refused to speak Spanish; I was on a mission to “become white”, thinking it would ingratiate me with my classmates and teachers. It was not until I reached high school that I realized I was wrong about my Mexican heritage and that it was something to be proud of. Through the process of writing about my experiences in school and during my career, I have confronted my mistakes and failure to accept my Mexican identity, especially not learning to become fluent in Spanish.

By the time I graduated from high school in 1963 as one of top students in my class, I was ready to begin my next steps to get a degree that would help me escape El Paso. After much thought and research about what my major should be, I decided without any advice from my family, teachers, or counselors to pursue a career in pharmacy. That was it; I had decided what I wanted to do; and I developed a plan. To receive a B.S. degree in pharmacy, one did two years of pre-pharmacy courses at any college, such as chemistry, physics, calculus, English, history, biology, accounting, government, and so on. The final three years for the degree were to be taken at an accredited college of pharmacy, which in my case was at the University of Texas at Austin after completing my pre-pharmacy courses at Texas Western College. After graduation from pharmacy school, my plan was to take the pharmacy board exams, pass them, and become a licensed pharmacist in 1968. Easy—right?

Texas Western College

The two-year pre-pharmacy curriculum at Texas Western College meshed quite nicely with my plans because my expenses were minimal to cover, living at home. My family did not have the financial resources to help me much with college expenses, such as tuition, books, bus fare, clothes, and other needs. I worked through high school as a paper boy and had saved several hundred dollars for my first year of college at TWC.  I realized that if I wanted to attend UT-Austin, it meant working 20 to 25 hours week while I managed a full course load each semester. There was one job that was very instrumental in my journey through academia and my subsequent career in white America.

Two weeks after graduating from Austin High School, I was on the bus to take me to my freshman classes in English and American History at Texas Western College in the summer of 1963. TWC was always thought to be an extension of high school for many of us who did not have the financial resources to leave El Paso to attend a “real university”. It was originally a small college that developed its reputation in the fields of engineering, mining, metallurgy, and geology; thus its nickname–the Miners. It is nestled around the small, jagged foothills of the Franklin Mountains, and the terrain with its colorful cacti and other desert plants adds to its beauty. Thus its nickname of the “high school on the hill”. It has a very distinctive football stadium chiseled into the side of the mountain, seen around the country as the Sun Bowl, and offers its fans a view of Mexico to the south across the Rio Grande.

My next-door neighbor, who I knew throughout my high school years, got me a job at the Data Analysis Center, which just happened to be across the street from the student union and most of my classrooms. DAC did contract work for the federal government on several defense and scientific projects. I did not know what to expect; most of the guys working there were math, physics, and engineering students. I was a pre-pharmacy major, mostly taking biological and business courses to prepare me for admission into pharmacy school.

But then I met Tony. As I was going to the water fountain in the main work room at DAC, I heard someone yell out at me:

“Hey, Danny.  My name for you is now Danny Waters”, Tony winked at me.

He told me that he had already seen me get a drink of water twice today and that was now my nickname. I instantly liked him. It so happened another student who worked at DAC was the son of my fourth-grade teacher, as well for Tony, a senior electrical engineering student.  When Tony and I asked Jim to see if his mother remembered us, he came back with his report:

“She remembered both of you well—Tony was a very quiet boy, and Danny was the most

  popular boy in the class”, Jim chuckled. 

I am sure he laughed because Tony and I had completely different personalities now that we were older.  I was shy and introverted and Tony was the BMOC. Intuitively, I knew that for me to be successful socially, academically, and professionally, I had to be more willing to engage with other people and become more extroverted. I began to come out of my shell during my two years at DAC with Tony as my role model. It turned out in his junior year Tony ran for president of the student body, and he won. It was very unusual for a junior to win the presidency and be around when the new president began his term of office. The new president and Tony did not like each other, and it was fun to see how Tony and Charlie fought it out in articles written for The Prospector, the student newspaper. Both of them had attended Austin High School; Tony grew up in a rough neighborhood, called Chivas Town, where there was a Mexican gang. Charlie lived in a more exclusive Anglo neighborhood closer to Austin High School. I lived in a mixed neighborhood, several blocks away from Chivas Town, but I had never met Tony.

My mother often spoke with Tony’s mother; they both attended the same Catholic church near our neighborhood. I learned from my mother that Tony’s parents were quite proud of his accomplishments. Through his personality, sense of humor, and how he carried himself in the presence of others, I knew he was a leader. Tony was preparing for job interviews and was interested in a position at Texas Instruments in Dallas. He asked me if I could run over to the Registrar’s Office and get a copy of his transcript. He gave me his student ID and his full name—Antonio Pedro. I stood in line for about 15 minutes and gave the student worker his ID number. She asked me twice for his name. 

“Tell big-shot Tony to get his own transcript”, she smiled at me.

She knew that Tony was the former president of the student body. When I told Tony what had happened, he laughed and said it was worth a try. By being one of the first Mexican students to be elected President of the TWC student body in the 1960s, Tony gave many of us Mexican students the pride and incentive to succeed in our endeavors. El Paso was definitely a town where whites were more prominent in business, educational, and government circles. We Mexicans at Texas Western College thought that Tony cracked the door for us.

Tony always treated me as an equal and not as a pimply teenager. Tony often saw me reading novels when I was not studying my chemistry and biology textbooks. He quietly asked me if I could recommend some books for him to read and if I knew of any good movies to see before he took his job in Dallas. I knew that I could not recommend The Idiot by Dostoevsky, which I happened to be reading. I was taking a world literature course for my required second year of English, and I immediately thought of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. It was a short piece to read and was odd and thought-provoking. Tony loved it! He learned the origin of the word— “Kafkaesque”, which he said he’d use when he was out with his colleagues for drinks in Dallas.

As for movies to see, I had seen some international movies recently and especially liked English and Italian movies. There was an artsy-like movie house near campus and showed up-to-date movies from Europe. I told Tony about some good movies that he may like. The week before I had seen the Alan Bates’ movie, Nothing But the Best, which introduced me to the wit and sophistication of English movies. The movie that Tony and I saw was Alberto Sordi’s The Devil, a hilarious Italian movie about a businessman who goes wild over Swedish blonde women during a business trip to Stockholm. 

When Tony’s girlfriend was to start graduate school in geology at the University of Arizona before he left to take his job in Dallas, he asked if I could help with her move to Tucson. I jumped at the offer. We went over the weekend and stayed at the YMCA. Although younger than the two of them, I was treated as an equal and had a great time in Tucson.

Getting that job at DAC was probably the best thing that happened to me while I was going to college. I never dated in high school, and I was socially awkward around girls. But at DAC I felt very comfortable, getting to know guys and girls who were very outgoing and intelligent, a good number of them majoring in physics, mathematics, and the relatively new area of computer sciences.  Although they all studied hard during the week, there were parties on weekends and picnic outings to New Mexico and other areas in El Paso. Not having a car, I was always able to hitch a ride with someone. In a way, it was like a large family, where everyone took care of others “in need”, like me. Several of the guys often went out to lunch to hole-in-the-wall joints near campus, with Tony showing us many of his favorite Tex-Mex restaurants near campus or in South El Paso. Being a jokester, Tony merely flapped his arms like a bird, and we all knew we were going to La Paloma for lunch.

It was not until I worked at DAC that I saw intelligent women holding positions of importance in a scientific field. The supervisors at DAC, who managed the federal contract on the collection of meteorological data from US weather balloons from around the world, were two Mexican American women in their thirties.  Anita was petite with an infectious smile and laugh and Stella was tall and slender with a dry and somewhat sarcastic sense of humor. I instantly liked both of these women. My first year at TWC was going well with my courses, and I slowly became adjusted to college life. But then November 22nd happened with the assassination of President Kennedy. I had just finished my last class that morning when I heard that he had been shot. In many Mexican homes in El Paso, one often found pictures of JFK next to religious images of Jesus and Mary. His tragic death affected many El Pasoans. Anita and Stella were grief-struck and were sobbing openly as I came into the DAC office. His death was not universally mourned in white America. In some grade schools in Dallas, it was reported that teachers were telling their students that his death was a good thing for the country. Was this an omen of what it’d be like at UT?  I knew that Austin and the University of Texas were heavily populated with white people. I hoped not.

In my second year, Stella and Anita left for better jobs and were replaced by two older white men who were meteorologists, and both named Jim.  We always joked about their last names–C… K and C…G, sounding out the last letter of CK’s name with a really strong “K” pronunciation. Physically, they were quite opposites–CK tall and skinny and CG, small and somewhat stout with a very bushy mustache. CG had a photo of himself with his new Buick Riviera on his desk. Tony played a joke and put a picture of a walrus next to his photo as before and after pictures. JC took it well and enjoyed Tony’s sense of humor. 

Several of the guys at DAC had played sports in high school and were still very competitive.  Although I was not a high school jock, I was somewhat athletic and liked basketball and baseball. There were two leagues in the intramural sports competitions at TWC:  the Greeks and the Independents. DAC had strong teams in flag football, softball, volleyball, and especially basketball. Our teams were usually the top two or three teams in the Independent League. There were several frat boys who worked at DAC and a not-so-friendly rivalry ensued during the school year between the Indies and the Greeks at the office. For our teams, CK became our unofficial coach. He set up practice times and decided on the rosters for the teams. I remember one time when several of us went out for lunch with Jim at a place where you ate all you wanted for a single price. The waitress jokingly asked him if he was our father; he sputtered, and his face turned red. It was a popular place for students and faculty, and we often saw the head coach of the Miners basketball team, eating there with his assistant coach. The following year, 1966, when I was no longer at TWC, the starting all-Black Miners five won the NCAA championship game against the all-white University of Kentucky team. It was a dramatic event in the history of NCAA basketball.

 My last year at Texas Western we dominated the basketball league. We had one ringer, Sonny, on our team who did not work at DAC; he was six two and we needed a center. He had played high school basketball with Silver at Ysleta High School. The starting four were Silver at point guard, Wally, the shooting guard, Sonny at center, and the other smaller Sonny at forward.  Vic, big Larry, Little Larry, Carlos, and I rotated at the other forward and guard spots. By winning the Independent League, we played the Greek winner, Kappa Sigma, for the Texas Western Intramural Championship. It was essentially a Mexican team playing against an all-white frat team. Several of my former high school classmates were on the sidelines rooting for the Greeks; I saw some of the more popular white girls I knew in high school ignoring my presence during the game. The Greek team had fancy uniforms and I believe that we took off our t-shirts and played as “skins”.  After we had decidedly won the game, Vic told me he saw some of the Greek supporters sobbing over the loss. Only one of my classmates in high school came over and shook my hand for winning the game. 

My two years at Texas Western went by quickly.  Academically, I was ready to begin pharmacy school at the University of Texas in the fall of 1965. By working about 20 hours a week at DAC for two years, I had saved enough money to begin my first year at the great University of Texas. I had learned what it took to survive the next hurdle in my academic studies at UT. For the next three years at the college of pharmacy I continued to work and go to my classes, earning enough money to pay for a decent apartment and buy a new ’67 Mustang by my senior year. I never really escaped El Paso; my family ties were too strong to be ruptured. I never returned to El Paso for my eventual career, but I did come back to the University of Texas as a new professor in pharmacology and toxicology at my alma mater. 

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Dan Acosta is a first-generation Mexican American, whose mother and grandparents emigrated from Mexico. He is a former professor, research scientist, and administrator, who retired in 2019 at age 74.  He writes about his experiences as a Mexican boy trying to succeed in white America.  His stories have appeared in The Acentos Review, Sky Island Journal, Somos en Escrito, The Rush, Toasted Cheese, Latin@Literatures, Midway Journal, and The Manifest Station.